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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27727517">The Four Times She Wasn't...</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HecoHansen31/pseuds/HecoHansen31'>HecoHansen31</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>'Cause Maybe I'd Still Feel Alive Without You [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Mention of Blood/Bullet Wounds, OOC! Jason And Bruce, mention of violence, profanities</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:40:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>37,357</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27727517</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HecoHansen31/pseuds/HecoHansen31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Jason’s ‘family’ met who they all thought was ‘his girlfriend’, except she wasn’t...<br/>... but she could be.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jason Todd/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>'Cause Maybe I'd Still Feel Alive Without You [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2028177</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Bruce</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>(A/N): Hello there lovelies!</p><p>I am kind of a newbie to the whole DC world, but as of lately I have just been hyperfixating on it badly, mostly on one of my favorite characters, which is Jason Todd.</p><p>And as always, I kind of... ended up writing a fic about it.</p><p>Before you go on, I just want to put a huge disclaimer on here:<br/>I am not a true expert, although I have followed a few comics and done a few researches about the various universe, so if anything is considered inaccurate, just send me a DM/an ask, just please do remember to be kind and not attacking.<br/>This a new start for me and I hope to make good friends and share my passion also on here!</p><p>So, if you did end up liking this silly work just let me know through a reblog or a comment or simply a like, it would certainly make me feel a bit more comfortable about my writing.</p><p>Have a nice reading!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="">
  <h2>
    <em>“Oh god, what did I do?</em>
  </h2>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>I'm out of control again </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Woke up blacker than blue</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> Probably lost a friend”</em>
  </p>
</div><div class=""><p>
    <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DubtbjOMCzaw&amp;t=ZDFiZDU1ZTJiNmYyMzU5ZWYyYjIzYTMzYTg0YTkzMDliZTViNWU4MywzYTgyMGY4NThmM2RmMjcyNDZlMzk4YWQ4NGZhYzQ5NTcwZmRlODg4&amp;ts=1606419116">
      <strong>
        <em>‘oh god’ by Mothica.</em>
      </strong>
    </a>
  </p>
<hr/></div><p>‘Today is a fucking slow day’ Laurel muttered, meanwhile Jason loaded his gun on the other line of the phone.</p><p>He could hear indeed utter peace on the other line of the phone, except the slow chatter of the detectives that definitely made its way through their private call.</p><p>But it was a lulling sensation.</p><p>And in the end, he had called Laurel meanwhile she was at work, so he couldn’t expect much.</p><p>He shouldn’t have called her, at all.</p><p>But there was something that constantly made Jason Todd come back to Laurel Cellini.</p><p>He joked that it was her muffins or the fact that she did give him quite a show, each time he came to her after a patrol finding her dancing out her nightly insomnia.</p><p>But he knew that deep down there was more.</p><p>And shit was he afraid to admit it.</p><p>‘… can’t you leave early?’ he asked her, as he pushed the gun down on the table, noticing that the few henchmen he had hired for his own ‘private protection’ were listening onto the conversation, not matter the fact that their boss was armed and prone to anger outbursts.</p><p>He should have shoot one in front of them, so they’d learn to keep their noses in their business.</p><p>And not in his.</p><p>‘I have to wait a few more hours, mostly because Jim wanted to talk with me about something…’ her tone was slow, but it didn’t hide her obvious happiness at the fact that she could be useful for somebody like commissioner Jim Gordon.</p><p>That and for the fact that she was officially allowed to call Jim.</p><p>Sometimes he couldn’t help but think that the reason why he felt so deeply for Laurel was because she made everything so easy, with her warm smile, her quick wits and nurturing nature.</p><p>But that wasn’t something that he could act on.</p><p>And he never thought that he would.</p><p>‘… and I know that you are saying that solely because you want muffins after you come home from patrol’ that was what he was talking about.</p><p>Laurel never made it awkward.</p><p>She didn’t ask him more than he was willing to admit.</p><p>But she had her own way to tell him ‘I miss you, too, idiot’.</p><p>‘… why would you say that sweetheart?’ he could almost picture that telltale burn on her cheeks that signaled embarrassment.</p><p>It always happened when he called her some silly names.</p><p>Alongside the annoyed anger that ringed in her answer:</p><p>‘Because you are a parasite, Red Hood, a parasite on my couch, just waiting to be fed’.</p><p>‘You aren’t seriously holding back with the insults?’ he shot back, as he moved to get up, looking at the watch on wrist, some technological thing ‘the replacement’ had fixed him up for his birthday, leaving it out of one of his safe houses.</p><p>And next to it stood, ‘Laurel’s friendship bracelet’.</p><p>An affectionate smirk appeared on his mouth, although nobody could see it, since he had already his helmet on.</p><p>‘Would you like it if I made everything easy, for you?’.</p><p>He could picture that dorky smirk that always took over Laurel’s features when she tried to back him up with a bit of his own sass.</p><p>And each time it left him without a witty answer.</p><p>‘… Jason’ he must have taken too much time to answer, and he was hallway through mumbling a “you haven’t lost me, ‘Rel” when he heard a well-known sound.</p><p>Metallic and brutal.</p><p>A gunshot.</p><p>And then Laurel’s voice ringing again in his ear.</p><p>‘… Jason! Fuck…’.</p><p>And then the line went dead.</p>
<hr/><p>Whatever ‘business meeting’ he was supposed to attend was completely ignored, as he pushed himself onto his motorbike, uncaring of whether he was wearing his full costume and how many guns he had hidden under it.</p><p>He didn’t understand fully what happened.</p><p>But he knew that Laurel, his fucking Laurel, was in big trouble.</p><p>She was located to the police station, her phone GPS giving off that last signal till it shut off completely, probably having been switched off.</p><p>He tried not to fucking panic and fall with his ass off his bike, after he discovered that.</p><p>Laurel wasn’t stupid.</p><p>She had survived Gotham for six months.</p><p>He had certainly been there to help her, but he trusted that she could handle anything if shit went down.</p><p>She had to.</p><p>But this was Gotham.</p><p>And a lunatic walking in police station was ordinary stuff for them.</p><p>But it wasn’t for Laurel.</p><p>He was on the opposite side of Gotham and although he speeded enough that the stupid watch on his wrist picked up his actions, adverting him to slow down and Tim tried to reach out to him, since the device functioned as some kind of ankle bracelet, whenever Jason’s vitals spiked up.</p><p>‘… what is going on, Jason?’ the device screeched, right when he pushed on the brakes to avoid being hit by a car coming in the opposing direction, effectively swerving at last minute, not to lose a single minute ‘.. are you in a fight? Has something gone down?’.</p><p>He could have asked Tim what was going on in the police station.</p><p>He should have been at Wayne enterprises, but he wouldn’t have hesitated to check up on the multiple tabs that he kept open on all of Gotham.</p><p>Hadn’t he already known what was happening and was halfway through suiting up to come with reinforces to the police station.</p><p>He would have been helpful.</p><p>But Jason was possessive on the people who were around himself.</p><p>From his death, he had discovered that you couldn’t relay on others.</p><p>So, he threw the watch off and speeded up.</p><p>Once he arrived at the police station, he did find the ruckus that he had been expecting but it seemed almost in control right now as a few of police cars came in with the siren on at full force.</p><p>And ambulances did the same.</p><p>Had there been wounded?</p><p>Were you one?</p><p>And it was in that massive confusion that he realized that he had chosen one of the worst ways to handle all of this.</p><p>He was in his uniform, although partially.</p><p>Because of that nobody would have let him pass or adverted him of the current situation, willingly and, as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t simply threaten everybody with his gun.</p><p>‘… you should just say “please”’ had once joked Laurel, meanwhile she stitched him up, pouring alcohol on his wounds and making him hiss loudly and bark at her a “be fucking careful”, just to hear her mutter a “say please”.</p><p>He picked up his phone, some flip phone shit that came with the typical look of a ‘drug dealer’ phone, as he flipped it open he checked the first number in it, that he always kept saved in there ‘for emergencies’.</p><p>“Oracle” he asked, once the sound made him aware that the call had been accepted by whoever was on the other line of the phone.</p><p>“Fuck Jason! I am…” she tried replying and considering that it was still daytime, barely lunch, he knew she was going to tell him that she was probably busy.</p><p>But he wouldn’t have any of that shit.</p><p>“… I need an information, immediately”.</p><p>‘She is… she is supposed to be in the hospital’.</p><p>Jason hadn’t waited for her to close the call to jump on his motorbike and drive as a crazed man, again arriving at the polished place with no idea of what to do.</p><p>He had changed his clothes, with some extras he kept in the trunk of his motorbike for ‘extreme necessities’ and he looked more like a civilian than before.</p><p>A 6’3 civilian with a gun badly hidden inside his pants.</p><p>For emergencies.</p><p>That’s what he told himself, although Babs had basically told him that the danger should have been taken care of.</p><p>A few goons of Penguin had come for commissioner Gordon in the police station, having eluded the security measurements and then they had started shooting at whoever was in the police station.</p><p>Jim Gordon was actually on a round with some rookies around Gotham, so they hadn’t found him.</p><p>But they had found Laurel.</p><p>‘I don’t have access to her medical files, but from what I have heard on the radio, she was one of the injured’.</p><p>Very fucking comforting.</p><p>‘I am not your knight in shining armor’ he had muttered once they had fought, because she had put herself recklessly in extreme danger and he had barely made it in time to save her, resulting in his whole mission to be completely destroyed ‘… you are just someone who is useful to me’.</p><p>Then why the hell did his heart run that crazily?</p><p>Why did he feel the fucking need to kill Penguin?</p><p>Why the thought of her being motionless on a bed made him feel like choking on bile?</p><p>But that wasn’t the time to have a mental breakdown.</p><p>He had quickly gotten a nurse to give him some info about the shooting, insisting that he was one of the relatives of the victims, discovering from a quick look on her time table that Laurel should have been in room 203, on the second floor.</p><p>He had effectively backed off and rushed there, keeping his whole attitude calm, worried that somebody might stop him right as he was nearing your room.</p><p>He was glad to know that the department was mostly full of fellow police officers who didn’t look in bad shapes, although a few had white bandages where the bullets had gotten them.</p><p>And then he reached room 202.</p><p>It would have taken him just one more chamber and he would have known whether Laurel had made it, and she’d be waiting for him with that annoyed smirk of her, chastising him for ‘being such an overbearing mother hen’ or…</p><p>… or he’d be welcomed by silence.</p><p>He was halfway through moving when he noticed that Laurel’s room, strategically placed nearby the vending machine and a few chair for visitors, was calmly controlled by commissioner Jim Gordon, himself, who looked like he was having a tough day.</p><p>And Jason coming close to the room certainly didn’t pass unnoticed.</p><p>The commissioner, immediately, put himself to stand at attention, physically blocking him from the room, although his stance was more defensive than actually one of attack.</p><p>And Jason couldn’t blame him.</p><p>But he was also very much desperate about seeing Laurel.</p><p>“… I am a rel…” he tried to start, his tone low, not wanting to give a scene to the others in the waiting room neither risk waking Laurel up.</p><p>“Laurel certainly would have told me about having a brother” detective Gordon interrupted him.</p><p>And hadn’t Jason felt at unease, he would have undoubtedly been both amazed by the man’s cold blood and huge balls.</p><p>He certainly appreciated that Laurel had someone who took care of her, meanwhile Jason couldn’t.</p><p>“… I am not her brother…” he knew Laurel hadn’t any brothers.</p><p>She had a younger sister, currently still living in California, with their mother.</p><p>And he knew that he didn’t even look the part of somebody that could be related to her.</p><p>Tanned and petite Laurel hadn’t anything in common with huge and pale Jason.</p><p>And yet, she was the sole person that could get him sometimes.</p><p>“… I am her boyfriend” she would have killed him for such an affirmation.</p><p>Cut his balls and put them in the blender at full velocity.</p><p>Jim, also, didn’t look too convinced.</p><p>He spent all his days with the girl, mostly because he knew that Laurel was kind of the ‘braincell’ of the police station and certainly had organized things much better since she had come along.</p><p>So, Laurel would have obviously told him about a hypothetical boyfriend.</p><p>And Jim had any reason to be alert, after an attack towards him which had ended up injuring many that he cared about, Laurel included.</p><p>Jason understood it.</p><p>And knew that Jim wouldn’t buldge.</p><p>Which would have made him use force, although he knew that it wasn’t the best of ideas.</p><p>“… I can vouch for him, Jim” intervened a voice behind them.</p><p>A voice Jason knew well enough.</p><p>But he still turned, surprised to find Bruce Wayne in the corridor with a cup of coffee in his hand, something in his whole demeanor definitely testifying that he was as surprised as Jason was, to see his ‘ward’ there.</p><p>Asking for a girl.</p><p>Saying he was her boyfriend.</p><p>Could this go anyway worse?</p><p>And, although Jim didn’t look fully convinced, he pushed to the side for Jason to bolt in the room, finding three bed, two empty and one with the soft silhouette of Laurel appearing underneath the thin blanket.</p><p>But she didn’t move.</p><p>Only when he turned, he noticed a rather petrified nurse that was checking her vitals and his eyes must have been basically ‘questioning’ the answer out of that she informed him immediately about what was going on.</p><p>‘Mrs. Cellini has had a bullet wound to her shoulder and was operated swiftly’.</p><p>She was now out of any danger, but she had been heavily sedated for the surgical operation and wouldn’t be waking up for a few hours, more.</p><p>And even then, she needed rest.</p><p>And the woman made it clear that she wasn’t to be disturbed by Jason, although she obviously wouldn’t have kicked him out of the place.</p><p>Mostly because it was physically impossible for her to do so.</p><p>Not because she lacked any ability to do so.</p><p>But to know that Laurel was effectively still breathing, eased Jason’s soul a lot.</p><p>“You are a fucking bother” he muttered between his teeth as he moved to sit himself down on the chair that was on her left side, gently having a closer look to the beauty that was a sleeping Laurel.</p><p>No expression wrinkles, no worries.</p><p>Although it hid from him those beautiful green eyes with brownish details, that she veiled with her thick glasses, having gained the nickname Laurel Kent, from him, on a night where she had told him all the conspiration theories about Superman’s true identity, since they both couldn’t sleep.</p><p>To think that if that day would have gone sour, they might never have done something like that again.</p><p>Something burned in his chest.</p><p>And he wasn’t able to stop herself from releasing all the emotions that he had felt, apart from the obvious anger that had basically kept him on his feet, the whole time.</p><p>And he felt like breaking down.</p><p>No more midnights spent with her making fun of him.</p><p>No more mornings where he could come home to her from a night of patrol to find freshly baked muffins and the coffee already made, although she didn’t like it.</p><p>No more moments where he felt like pushing her closer and never letting her go.</p><p>He could have lost her.</p><p>And the sole thought of it fucked up his mind badly.</p><p>There’d be no Lazarus’ Pit for Laurel.</p><p>He had dangerously taken her for granted for too much time.</p>
<hr/><p>He was halfway through going to grab a coffee, mostly because Jim Gordon had efficiently invaded his space and moved onto questioning him as if he was a police officer.</p><p>… which kind of made sense, if you considered that he was one.</p><p>And that Jason never trusted them.</p><p>But Jim had asked questions about ‘his relationship’ with Laurel, in a ‘detective’ voice.</p><p>And he hadn’t been able to deny the man.</p><p>‘So, when did you meet? A few months ago? Yeah? I want the precise date’.</p><p>Thankfully, he had his own experience with detectives, so it had been relatively easy, excusing himself eventually with ‘an extreme need for caffeine’.</p><p>Even more after Jim’s last question:</p><p>‘How did you know that she was at the hospital?’.</p><p>And that was the first time he had been truthful.</p><p>‘I was on the phone with her, I went to the police station and I heard what happened and I just rushed in here’.</p><p>And Jim had softened his stare on him.</p><p>Right as Jason had ducked his head low, not to show how much all of this truth was affecting him.</p><p>But he definitely got a distraction in seeing Bruce Wayne, officially Batman, trying to deal with the vending machine in the waiting area, who had probably eaten up his change or was refusing to do what it had been paid to do so.</p><p>It felt like something that Robin! Jason might have laughed at, consid Bruce born between the prehistory and the disappearance of dinosaurs.</p><p>And he couldn’t deny that a small smirk didn’t appear on his mouth at that sight.</p><p>He moved lightly as Bruce noticed his presence and pushed himself to the side to allow him to come in front of the vending machine, blubbering something about ‘the thing being broken’.</p><p>Jason simply hit it, activating properly the vending machine that came completely alive, dropping something that resembled dirty water in a paper cup.</p><p>“…oh” was Bruce’s sole reply as he witnessed the whole process, eventually dipping down to take the cup in his hands, as mechanically as he could “… thank you”.</p><p>Jason pushed back his shoulder, in a non-verbal ‘… it is nothing’.</p><p>And he hoped to continue on that silence, but Bruce simply didn’t seem happy with that.</p><p>“So…” that was a dangerous word and Jason almost thought of running on the opposite part of the floor, where he had noticed another vending machine being placed “… you have a girlfriend, now”.</p><p>‘More like a friend towards which I might feel intense emotions but I can’t bring myself to confront, because of my belief of being completely dead inside and the need to avoid anything that might make me turn back and face that child in that warehouse’.</p><p>But he preferred not to put a label on anything.</p><p>Made things less complicate and took less time.</p><p>“Thank you for what you did back there… with Gordon” he deflected carefully the question, pushing the money in the machine, wanting to get out of this as quickly as he could.</p><p>“I…” Bruce didn’t seem to catch his intentions, as he sat down on one of the few chairs left for the visitors, beside the vending machine “… I am happy for you Jason”.</p><p>His fist hit the vending machine, although it was perfectly functioning and he could hear the horrifying sound, just as Bruce did, but he gave no kind of reaction to it, beside sending him some kind of ‘annoyed dad look’.</p><p>“We are in a hospital…”.</p><p>“Then what the fuck are you doing here?”.</p><p>It did take Bruce a certain amount of energy not to reprimand Jason for ‘his language’.</p><p>“I heard what had happened in the station” he muttered, instead, as he moved the coffee in his cup lightly with the plastic spoon, suddenly completely disinterested by the beverage “… I actually… I was in there when it happened, talking about some possible donations”.</p><p>He hadn’t thought about that.</p><p>He hadn’t thought about anything that wasn’t Laurel honestly.</p><p>“The girl…” and he sent a meaningful look at the room where Laurel was “… got a bullet in her shoulder, trying to deal with the attackers”.</p><p>Typical Laurel thing.</p><p>If she could put herself in danger she would.</p><p>But at the same time Jason knew there was something deeper.</p><p>Deeper than her reckless behavior.</p><p>She had a nurturing nature and to her saving others was some kind of reason to live and to put herself in front of a bullet, if it meant that somebody got to live another day, meanwhile she didn’t.</p><p>But to Jason that would have been straight up a tragedy.</p><p>“Thank you for what you did with Jim” he muttered once he noticed that his coffee had arrived and was finished “… and she isn’t my…”.</p><p>“But you care about her” stated Bruce, because it was definitely impossible not to think such a thing after everything that Jason had done for her during that day “… that is all I need to know”.</p><p>“I need to get back to her” he felt like some clumsy fifteen year old after Bruce’s affirmation,  and his gaze onto Jason made him fussy, as if the part of him that rejected wholeheartedly any affection on his side was trying to get under control another part of him.</p><p>That child who still needed a father figure.</p><p>“Of course” simply muttered Bruce, knowing that Jason didn’t do anything that he didn’t want to and having stopped a long time ago to avoid any fight with his ‘wayward son’ “… she’ll feel better soon, I am sure”.</p><p>Bruce simply nodded, smiling lightly as if to say ‘go, I know you have to’.</p><p>And Jason allowed himself to return that smile, tiredly.</p><p>When he came back, Laurel was up and Jim wasn’t in the room, probably having been called at work.</p><p>She was awkwardly pushed against the headboard of the tiny hospital bed.</p><p>Although for her short stature and petite constitution, it was probably perfect.</p><p>Her eyes shot out to him as soon as she noticed him, or better heard his heavy step, dragged out by the tiredness that took over his whole body once he saw her alive and well, that shit-eating smile on her face.</p><p>And he suddenly realized how heavy this whole day had been on him.</p><p>And it all fell down on him.</p><p>“You look like shit” she reprimanded him with a smirk that didn’t fully reach her eyes, still scared by what had been the worst moment of her life, probably.</p><p>It wasn’t every time that you ended up being on the other side of a gun.</p><p>The one that shoot bullets.</p><p>“… feel like it” he mumbled, and moved himself closer as she beckoned him that way, opening her arms, although Jason could see that the one hit by the bullet was lightly slower and opened less, trembling lightly.</p><p>He cradled Laurel close to his chest and in a way that made her lightly shift but she adjusted swiftly against him, relaxing fully as he felt his own body soften up around her warm one, always so warm although she insisted of being eternally cold.</p><p>Her nose was indeed the sole cold point of her body.</p><p>And she liked shoving it in the crook of his neck to surprise him.</p><p>“I was… so fucking scared” she mumbled softly with a light smirk, although he could notice the way his lungs were shaking badly due to the panic coursing through her and he held her closer, hoping that his gentle strength would have a grounding effect “… oh fuck, Jason…”.</p><p>“You are alright” he cooed at her, gently letting his lips ghost softly over her neck, gently and attentively, as he knew she liked sending a slight shiver fall down her back, as she finally let go and shattered completely against him, holding him tighter and anchoring herself to him desperately “… I got you, sweetheart”.</p><p>“Thank you” she muttered as she pushed herself away from the hug, something in her going rigid and Jason knew that it was embarrassment, never for being seen by him and neither for him, but because for somebody who had everything under control, that gesture was out of control.</p><p>And she didn’t like appearing not completely in control of everything.</p><p>But it didn’t mean that it was wrong.</p><p>And Jason was trying to show her that.</p><p>“For what?” because he didn’t know what she meant.</p><p>He hadn’t been there when she had been attacked and neither he had protected.</p><p>But she just held hugged him again and Jason felt cold and not knowing what he could have done.</p><p>What he should have done.</p><p>Or better he knew what he should have done.</p><p>But he couldn’t do it.</p><p>He couldn’t bring himself to do it.</p><p>“… for just being here, idiot”.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Jim & Barbara</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>And this time a slip of Jason’s mouth will bring them to have to act like a couple to convince the feared Commissioner Gordon.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Before you go on, I just want to put a huge disclaimer on here:</p><p>I am not a true expert, although I have followed a few comics and done a few researches about the various universe, so if anything is considered inaccurate, just send me a DM/an ask, just please do remember to be kind and not attacking.</p><p>And, if you did end up liking this silly work just let me know through a reblog or a comment or simply a like, it would certainly make me feel a bit more comfortable about my writing.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“Two stones skipping, my heart dripping<br/>Our hands slipping out of reach<br/>My bed’s empty, I’ve said plenty<br/>Now words just fall from the peaks”</em>
</p><p>
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    <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D20ll64N8U5M&amp;t=N2RmNDcyMmZlMDNiZjM3ODA2ZDIxNGYyMDBkNjUzOGJlYzE4OGEyMSxHYTE0VVNCZQ%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3AiRoRvpi-Q2jj48wxQYOGgg&amp;p=https%3A%2F%2Flostoctaviaaugusta.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F636153493335457793%2Fthe-four-times-she-wasnt&amp;m=1&amp;ts=1606762912">‘Holding Hands’ by Quinn XCII (feat Elohim)</a>
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</p><p>Laurel had gone back to her work a week after the incident.</p><p>Although she’d have to do much more physical therapy and she had been advised to avoid anything that might reopen the wound and bring the scarring tissues to be irritated or uneven.</p><p>This meant that Jason literally didn’t allow her to carry anything in her house.</p><p>He had also refused to take onto any missions for at least a month, since she had been dismissed from the hospital.</p><p>And, as much as she complained about his presence in her house, she was glad of him staying with her.</p><p>Not solely for the objective reason that he was indeed helpful at home, but also because some nights she would wake up with her limbs shaking, after a nightmare of what had happened at the station.</p><p>And she would just curl a bit tighter to Jason, saying that she was doing it to feel more comfortable, but he knew that the truth was that she was crying in the crook of his shoulder and he never said anything about that and neither protested.</p><p>He just held her tighter.</p><p>There had been some kind of weird shift since the day of the attack in their dynamics.</p><p>And Laurel couldn’t help but worry.</p><p>Worry was her second nature so there wasn’t much that she could do to ease the uneasiness she felt in her stomach as Jason looked at her as if she had the whole world in her eyes, but wouldn’t admit that it was like that, constantly making her wonder what must have been wrong in her to bring them in that situation.</p><p>And if she was simply dreaming it all up.</p><p>Still, having to focus on work helped lessening the outside noise that her brain created when it was allowed to think on its own.</p><p>Although she hadn’t been allowed to properly get back in her usual rhythm, she mostly worked on the computer, taking care of the records that hadn’t been digitalized with the constant reminder from Pearl that she needed ‘to stretch and relax her shoulders’.</p><p>As if that could also combat the night terrors.</p><p>The way her heart would start beating faster and faster when she heard any metallic sound, resembling the one of a gun, that was loaded.</p><p>As if her life could ever go to normal, after what had happened.</p><p>But it had to.</p><p>And when Jim softly came to her work-position, she welcomed the distraction.</p><p>“We were almost going to hell without you, girlie” he commented noticing immediately that she hadn’t smiled the entire day “… the entire place was almost set on fire when Giblison tried to put a whole box of donut in the microwave”.</p><p>“… you all seriously need a baby-sitter” Laurel muttered after she had softly smirked, pushing her chair away from the desk to properly face him “… I don’t know how you managed to come this far in your life, without committing arson”.</p><p>“That’s why we would have been truly screwed if you hadn’t made it” the memory of that was bittersweet because detective Gordon’s reprimand had a sweet tone but it just reminded Laurel how close she had been to death.</p><p>Jason had told her that she had been ‘fucking stupid’.</p><p>And she would have agreed, now.</p><p>But in that moment, she hadn’t felt anything.</p><p>And now she felt it all.</p><p>“…and to celebrate the fact that you did survive it… why don’t you and your boyfriend join me for a special dinner?”.</p><p>Boyfriend?</p><p>Her love life was completely absent since she had started living in Gotham.</p><p>Not that it had any kind of interesting ‘plot-twists’ in her life before moving there.</p><p>She probably must have had a big questioning mark on her face, because Jim immediately backed up his statement with a quick description of her ‘boyfriend’, although he probably was as confused as her by her reaction.</p><p>“… blue eyes? Very very tall? Brunette…”.</p><p>Jason.</p><p>He was describing Jason Todd, Laurel’s unwanted roommate.</p><p>What the heck had happened for the five hours Laurel had been completely unconscious?</p><p>Probably something for which she’d kill Jason.</p><p>“Oh yeah” she had no choice but to play along, even more because she honestly had no clue about what to say “… but he is busy… I don’t think that is possible…”.</p><p>“Then just let me know when he is available” detective Gordon’s tone didn’t give back any possibility to fight on this matter and honestly Laurel hadn’t any idea on how to deal with his news.</p><p>Even more now that she had just learned about that.</p><p>The only thing that could come up in her mind was the song ’50 ways to say you died’ by Train, but she wasn’t sure that it would have solved anything.</p><p>As the daughter of an actress, she certainly sucked at this kind of things.</p><p>“Ok” was the only thing she was able to utter back, as commissioner Jim Gordon simply smiled at her, happily.</p><p>She was screwed.</p><p>And Jason would go down with her.</p><hr/><p>That day she came home to the beautiful sight of Jason trying to patch up a few of his old suits, meanwhile the perfect smell of dinner had already seeped through the walls of her miniscule apartment, making Laurel breath a pure breath of relief.</p><p>But it wasn’t enough to ease the anger she felt at the shit that Jason had brought upon them, both.</p><p>“Oh hey, ‘Rel?” he muttered once he heard the door closing soundly behind her “… everything alright at your first day back? Do you need me to threaten somebody to get you more days off?”.</p><p>“I need you to explain why detective Gordon think that we are a couple” and from the guilty look on his face, he certainly knew a thing on two on how that thing had happened “… so, you told him”.</p><p>“It was an emergency” muttered Jason, raising lightly his arms, as Laurel came forward with a strong step in her walk almost as if she wanted to pass through him at full force and honestly with the anger that filled any pore of her body, that might not have been the worst idea she had had.</p><p>“What kind of emergency entails having to tell my boss, by the way, that you are my boyfriend?” she asked him, lightly raising his voice, although they were one in front of the other, in the tiny kitchen that operated also as a dining room, as he was almost at her level, sat down.</p><p>“The kind that necessitates to visit you in the hospital, because you put your ass in trouble” he replied, holding her annoyed glare with a casualness that definitely did show the amount of years that he had passed on the receiving hands of many disappointed eyes.</p><p>“Couldn’t you have just said that you were a relative?” that would have been the most obvious lie.</p><p>“Yeah, of course, sweetheart, me a tall and pale zombie a relative of Mrs. Sunny California who barely is taller than a child” he retortedthe sarcasm in his voice serving as some kind of grounding presence in a fight that had the potential to explode at full force “… I didn’t think it would get us in trouble”.</p><p>That was the closest that she could come to an apology with Jason Todd.</p><p>That should have been enough.</p><p>“… it did” she muttered, accepting it as she sat down next to him, realizing the tense posture that he had kept the all the time, till she came closer to him, relaxing his body and letting it sling a bit back to allow his shoulder to touch hers, in some kind of silly gestures that always comforted her “… and now you’ll have to accompany me, as my boyfriend, to a dinner to commission Gordon’s house”.</p><p>“That won’t happen”.</p><p>“Oh it will” she retorted and before he could try to escape this, she grabbed him softly by the face, making him turn and face her “… because if you don’t, you can say ‘bye bye’ to my precious muffins”.</p><p>“That’s cold” he uttered, his whole body fighting to shut down a laugh, as Laurel regarded him with the same amount of amused annoyance she would have for an unfunny joke.</p><p>“Then you have no choice”.</p><hr/><p>So, here they were.</p><p>At commissioner Gordon’s house on a Friday night, after work.</p><p>Although the ‘they’ referred mostly to her and a whole box of delicious muffins with lemon icing on top of them that she had brought as a present to the commissioner, their host.</p><p>Jason would join later, since he had some ‘business’ he needed to attend to.</p><p>And if there was one thing that Laurel had discovered about co-inhabiting a space with a vigilante was that you never asked what their business truly was.</p><p>Even more with Jason, since it would have been easier getting a tooth out of that sassy mouth than a proper answer.</p><p>Still, he had been ordered to present himself at a reasonable time for dinner.</p><p>Or she’d change the locks to her apartment.</p><p>Even the ones at the windows.</p><p>Commissioner Gordon welcomed her softly once he got to the door, ushering her inside the small but homely apartment and complimenting her for ‘being perfectly in time’.</p><p>“… which obviously means that I haven’t much ready yet, but do open the wine, my dear, if you are so inclined” and he had led her to a spacious living room, where a table had been set up, with four places, which had been properly already dressed with the proper forks, glasses and tissues.</p><p>“Don’t worry, I just wanted to come in to see if I could help”.</p><p>Growing up with a mother that was barely there had pushed Laurel to have a certain level of independence in the domestic arts, not simply for herself, but mostly for her smaller sister.</p><p>So, helping others was almost a second nature to her.</p><p>Commissioner Gordon simply smirked at her reply and then spoke softly:</p><p>“Oh that’s very nice, Laurel, but believe me, I have already my personal assistant” and in that moment  appeared from the kitchen, a pretty red-haired woman in a wheelchair, a few years older than Laurel, and with a fuming tray of what looked delicious appetizers on her knees “… may I introduce to you my beloved daughter, Barbara?”.</p><p>Barbara, at that, put down the tray in the middle of the table and moved to offer Laurel her hand, which she accepted muttering a simple ‘I am Laurel’.</p><p>“… the reason why my dad hasn’t gone mad, yet, isn’t it?” joked softly the girl, making Laurel blush a bit “Hope you and your boyfriend don’t mind that I joined in”.</p><p>She certainly didn’t.</p><p>And Jason didn’t have a single chance to deny her anything that night.</p><p>“Barbara has come back to help me with a few things since she was around here” muttered her father, gently bringing her closer by an arm, which Barbara tried to jokingly escape, some kind of embarrassment on her cheeks “… she is amazing and  the best daughter I could hope for”.</p><p>“… he is saying that just because I showed him how to download an app on his iPad” shot back Barbara with a conspiratorial look at Laurel, who simply smirked and added a bit of her own gossip to his boss’ daughter’s own.</p><p>To the point that the poor detective just had to bring them apart, saying ‘how heartbroken’ he was that both of them had ‘so little respect for their elders’.</p><p>To which they both chimed in with a ‘so you finally admit that you are old!’.</p><p>The nice time they spent together before Jason’s arrival was actually quite nice and the detective insisted that she simply called him Jim even when they weren’t at work, to make things less official.</p><p>‘I am honestly very glad to be able to celebrate a nice night with two amazing women’.</p><p>‘Dad, why are you so sappy?’ had joked Barbara, as she moved to pop open the bottle of red wine that she had brought ‘… and he hasn’t even started drinking!’.</p><p>Although Laurel joined in Barbara’s easy laugh, she still couldn’t help but envy her a bit.</p><p>She had never known who her father was, not that she had been interested in discovering who had been her sperm donor.</p><p>But she had missed all those funny and cheerful ‘father-daughter activities’.</p><p>The easy laughs and the constant support and the sweet gestures.</p><p>So, it was a bit nostalgic to witness all of this, knowing she could never have anything similar.</p><p>At 7 p.m. the doorbell rang again and a message shining on her phone alerted her that Jason was outside waiting and that he had ‘put his best clothes’, as she had ‘suggested to him’.</p><p>A polite way to say that she had ordered him to avoid showing up in the whole Red Hood get up and covered by blood.</p><p>“… hey that should be Jensen” Laurel muttered, not knowing why suddenly her stomach felt completely knotted and anxious, as if she was seriously Jason’s girlfriend and not the person that allowed him to live in her house, eat her food and sleep on her sofa.</p><p>And on occasion in her bed.</p><p>Not many people actually remembered Jason, but they had had to create a whole fake persona for him to interpret today, so that nobody would link his figure to the one of Bruce Wayne’s deceased ward.</p><p>‘What about Rason Rodd?’ he had muttered, as he went through various disguises, meanwhile Laurel simply looked through the enormous pile of clothes that he had left around.</p><p>‘That sounds like a stripper name’.</p><p>‘Good, that’s the vibe I was going for’.</p><p>And they had come up with Jensen Kool (the surname hadn’t been Laurel’s idea), a journalist (to explain his numerous absences) who she had met on one of her run in the coffee shop near the station for pure coincidence.</p><p>They had been dating for three months and right now they were in the honeymoon phase.</p><p>And it was already decided they’d break up after this peacefully for artistic divergences.</p><p>Jason had a story straight out a telenovela ready, but Laurel had completely refused to follow on that.</p><p>‘It needs to be believable’ she had muttered as he started chanting about some kind of plot-twist straight from a gothic novel.</p><p>‘… don’t you want to add a bit of drama?’.</p><p>‘We have already enough drama, as it is’.</p><p>“… I’ll get the door” she muttered coming back to the present, as Barbara gave her a slight nod and commissioner Gordon seemed on the verge of what looked like a midlife crisis.</p><p>She would have honestly laughed, hadn’t she found herself faced with Jensen Kool as soon as she opened the door.</p><p>Laurel was used to Jason’s handsome face.</p><p>Gosh, she had even seen the man naked a few times.</p><p>And it hadn’t stopped a light blush from appearing on her face.</p><p>But there was something unnaturally beautiful in a Jason that didn’t come back from patrol on three hours of sleep (not consecutively) without his ever-present frown and with his clothes properly buttoned and not wearing something made of leather, for once.</p><p>Although he still had his leather jacket between his arms.</p><p>Although Laurel did admire the utter beauty he was…</p><p>… there was something… strange.             </p><p>This wasn’t indeed Jason.</p><p>It was Jensen.</p><p>“Can I come in, babe?”.</p><p>Oh no, the little shit was Jason.</p><p>“Do come in, inside, my beloved”.</p><p>‘So you want to play this game, I’ll give you fucking war’ her eyes sparkled with that promise and Jason just upped the game, lightly pushing his arm around her middle, in a way that made her almost jump.</p><p>That idiot.</p><p>Jason knew perfectly how jumpy Laurel was in those areas.</p><p>He had actually found out, planning a sneak attack on her, just to be elbowed in the nose.</p><p>‘If I wasn’t so proud of you right now, it would be on’ he had muttered holding his ‘possibly- broken’ nose, meanwhile Laurel alternated between worry and anger ‘because that was fucking moronic, little shit’.</p><p>“So, when can we go home?” he muttered, leaning close to her ear, as they stilled in the hallways to take a deep breath before diving in the madness that that dinner would have been.</p><p>That gesture left her breathless and lightly flustered in the face, as Laurel realized that all it would have taken for their lips to brush together was for her to turn around.</p><p>“… you have just arrived” she simply said indignantly, stepping forward and speeding lightly, although the living room where they were expecting them to be wasn’t that far.</p><p>And Jason with a few strides caught up to her and messily reached out for her hand, finally managed to grab in his own with a grip that was tighter than proper, and Laurel lightly pushed down her heeled shoe on his feet to make him understand not to fuck this up.</p><p>He couldn’t whimper his disapproval or tease her some more, because they were soon brought in the kitchen, where the table was already all set up, although Laurel noticed Barbara’s absence, probably in the kitchen to bring more good.</p><p>And Jim drinking a huge gulp of wine as they both appeared in his vision.</p><p>To which Jason simply smirked.</p><p>“Oh detective Gordon” he called out to him, immediately pushing forward and away from Laurel, who couldn’t help but detest the absence of his steady body next to her, definitely worrying about how he could mess all of this up “It’s such a pleasure to meet you!”.</p><p>Detective Gordon was as surprised as Laurel.</p><p>But he quickly recovered, finishing the glass with another enormous gulp of wine, before of offering his most stretched smile to Jason and accepting the hand that the man had held out for him, as Laurel had to stop herself from the anxious sweat on her forehead away.</p><p>“Oh, it’s a pleasure to meet you… Jenson, right?”.</p><p>“Jensen” replied Jason, all happy of his new name, meanwhile it took everything in Laurel not to roll her eyes at that idiotic behavior “… Jensen Kool, K-O-O…”.</p><p>“Babe, I think he got it” that was Laurel’s signal to keep his inner drama queen at a minimum “… this is my boyfriend, commissioner… I mean… Jim”.</p><p>“Yeah, Jim I am Laurel’s boyfriend”.</p><p>Was that some kind of idiotic proudness on his face?</p><p>Commissioner Gordon definitely didn’t look happy to be called ‘Jim’ by Jason, but they soon discovered they had bigger problems at hand.</p><p>When Barbara entered the dining room.</p><p>And she almost dropped the last tray on her the floor when she saw Jason.</p><p>“… do you… do you know each other?” muttered Jim, when he noticed as Laurel, Barbara’s surprised face and her eyes shining with recognition, meanwhile Jason ‘I always have a smartass reply in my pockets’ Todd, seemed definitely… unable to smartass back.</p><p>“… yeah”.</p><p>“No”.</p><p>Now Laurel was also confused.</p><p>And was that ugly feeling in her gut jealousy?</p><p>No, definitely.</p><p>Had Jason and Barbara had something?</p><p>Because as the confusion shifted, embarrassment was onto both their cheeks.</p><p>And Jason was painfully tense against her, something that she knew happened when he didn’t feel at ease about his surroundings.</p><p>“… we met around Gotham… with me being a journalist and…”.</p><p>“Yeah, definitely” backed him up Barbara, pushing her eyes onto the ground, as she moved to bring the last tray onto the table, and Jim asked if he could help her, just to be shushed off.</p><p>At that, he invited ‘the lovebirds’ to sit themselves.</p><p>‘I can’t honestly wait to hear what brought you two together’.</p><p>And Laurel couldn’t wait to have a panic attack about all of this.</p><p>But strangely Jason managed to be charming for the entire dinner, definitely erasing whatever weird sensation he had felt when he had at first seen Barbara, who looked at him as if she perfectly knew that he was bullshitting his way through the all situation.</p><p>But wonder also appeared in her eyes.</p><p>Laurel just hoped she wouldn’t out whatever she was thinking to her father.</p><p>She played the girlfriend part definitely not as amazingly as Jason did, not solely because she probably had much less experience in all of this than him (although she hadn’t ever seen any ‘feminine touch’ on Jason’s clothes) (and neither ‘male’, for the record) (or anything in between).</p><p>But also, because she certainly didn’t know what would be improper for the situation.</p><p>So, she just followed Jason’s lead, slightly coming closer to him, as he softly hooked an arm around her hips, being attentive not to be too sudden in his gestures, moving to adjust a loose strand of her hair away from her sever updo.</p><p>In his eyes there was the same wonder she had felt when she had at first welcomed inside of Jim’s house.</p><p>And Laurel didn’t know whether it was a good thing or not.</p><p>Laurel had come at home to adjust her appearance before the dinner, switching in something different from the overall she wore at work.</p><p>All her work clothes gave a cozy vibe that made her feel like she wasn’t being objectified by the male gaze and yet was comfortable enough for her to move around.</p><p>But she had thought that wouldn’t have been proper for a dinner with her boss, although the thought of wearing anything that was even a bit different from usual rubbed her the wrong way.</p><p>In the end she had settled up for something that was comfortable and elegant: a plaid tennis skirt, of a proper length that went past her knees, similar to the ones she had worn in the few private school she had been in.</p><p>It might have an easy choice for everyone else, except Laurel.</p><p>She had grown up with a mother whose beauty was what had made her famous on the big screen.</p><p>And Laurel… hadn’t just turned out that way.</p><p>This had obviously meant that, no matter what she heard being said about her body, Laurel had always felt flawed, in many aspects.</p><p>So, finally accepting to wear a skirt, although with a conservative cut, was a huge step forward and the fact that she hadn’t felt the need to change it after seeing her legs and thighs in the tights was definitely progress.</p><p>Which had been possible also because of Jason’s shameless compliments.</p><p>‘Nice legs you have there, ‘Rel’ he had commented once he had caught her in something tight-fitting during the summer and from then on he had just made it his mission to let her know ‘how fucking perfect her legs were’.</p><p>And that was why this all relationship was strange.</p><p>Friends didn’t say something like that to other friends.</p><p>If she could even define their relationship as a ‘friendship’.</p><p>Still, Jason brought her back from her overthinking ways, as he lightly pulled on the strand that he was adjusting, almost childishly, but his smile was bright and Laurel let the small vexations slide to the side.</p><p>“You look amazing” her muttered just to reinstate the feeling of embarrassment that Laurel felt each time Jason complimented her.</p><p>And it only heightened when he softly raised her chin to make sure they were at the same eye-level.</p><p>She had thought that he didn’t mean them.</p><p>His compliments.</p><p>But each time she looked at him in those pretty shiny eyes.</p><p>Laurel was convinced of the contrary.</p><p>“… thank you” and as she tried to desperately find a distraction from that intensity that Jason bore for everything, her comprehended, going for the untouched wine in her glass, she met Jim’s stare, who was smirking somehow more relaxedly.</p><p>And the blush on Laurel’s cheeks just became redder.</p><p>“You do look quite like a cute couple” he offered the compliment to them both, before something purely wicked in their eyes and he moved to raise his own glass, quickly imitated by Barbara, who seemed to catch his drift on the whole thing “… let’s raise our glasses!”.</p><p>And both Laurel and Jason did, with a gracious smile.</p><p>But they both choked on the wine as Jim added something to his discourse.</p><p>“… and why don’t you, two, give us a kiss to celebrate this young love!”.</p><p>They were like two fawns caught by headlights.</p><p>“… ahem…” this time Jason looked like he couldn’t bullshit his way through this one “… I don’t think that would be proper…”.</p><p>“I do think the same” Laurel blurted in, trying to avoid making the wine come out of her nose, after she had almost risked of spitting it onto Barbara, sat in front of her.</p><p>“Oh, c’mon, if you want, we can turn around!” joked Barbara and this time Jason did send her a look that implied some kind of previous knowledge between them.</p><p>And a big threat, if she continued in her teasing ways.</p><p>“I am not… seriously this is ridiculous” Laurel muttered, steeling her eyes in the same expression that her mother did whenever she wanted to obtain something, hoping it’d have the same effect as hers, although she knew that she probably looked like a squirrel.</p><p>Honestly Laurel had gone through so much embarrassing stuff, through her high school years that a kiss like that wouldn’t have particularly embarassed her, but she didn’t want Jason to be awkward.</p><p>Their time spent together had brought him to confess to Laurel a few things that made her uneasy about taking advantage of Jason, in that way.</p><p>So, she was surprised when Jason lightly put an hand underneath her chin to bring it close to him and with a small huff he pushed himself slowly near to Laurel’s lips, who had to remind herself to close her eyes, not to creep him out.</p><p>The kiss was a bare brush of lips, and Jason’s grip onto her skin was light and not forceful, definitely careful at leaving her enough space to pull back if she felt the need for it.</p><p>But Laurel honestly just felt the need to bring him closer.</p><p>Still she kept her hand onto her laps, not wanting to annoy him.</p><p>Although she had to admit that Jason seemed almost utterly relaxed against her, as his hand lightly brushed softly her left cheek, probably burning up for the embarrassment she was feeling, at the knowledge that this was truly happening.</p><p>Although a small look at his eyes made Laurel understand that they were the sole ones in the room.</p><p>For him.</p><p>And Laurel thought:</p><p>‘How the heck did one manage to get back to life after a kiss with Jason Todd?’</p><p>Whistles and laughs brought them back, and she immediately hid her face with her hands, as Jason protectively brought Laurel closer to allow her to hide her face in his chest, as both Jim and Barbara seemed to get the intel that maybe they should have left the younglings a moment of calmness.</p><p>To collect themselves.</p><p>‘I’ll start up with the dishes’ muttered Jim, as Barbara nodded along, refusing any protest and offer of help from Laurel, insisting about the fact that she wasn’t only a guest, but also injured.</p><p>And once her father was out of earshot, she mouthed to Jason slowly enough that also Laurel could catch:</p><p>‘… just another civilian, my ass’.</p><p>And turned around, following her father, who had started calling up after her, probably because he needed help setting up the dishwasher.</p><p>“Did you ‘just a civilian’ zoned me?’ accused him Laurel, once they were out of earshot, just for Jason to signal her to lower the volume of her voice.</p><p>‘.. they are probably listening through the door, noisy fuckers’ he muttered, before he readjusted himself, as Laurel still stood painfully on his sculpted chest.</p><p>‘You got this, Laurel, I mean… you have seen the real thing a thousand of times…’ she told herself, although she had to admit that seeing and being laid against it were two very different things.</p><p>“I do think that we might have convinced Jim of the utter pureness of our love” Laurel then huffed out lowly, trying to sit up more properly in her own chair, as she pushed the skirt to gently cover again her legs since it had risen a bit up with the various maneuvers during the kiss.</p><p>But Laurel forgot to let go of Jason’s hand, which she had used to still herself, meanwhile it stood still on her thigh, just above the fabric of her skirt.</p><p>And he playfully squeezed her thigh, once he noticed the position of his hand, sending her a small smirk, before effectively leaving the soft zone.</p><p>She knew that he was probably doing this for show.</p><p>Not that he couldn’t be touchy: Jason was strangely very very touchy with her when he wanted to, although never inappropriately touchy.</p><p>But it made her stomach burst with the tell-tale butterflies.</p><p>And her cheeks redden at his boldness.</p><p>She wasn’t blushing.</p><p>It was definitely the wine.</p><p>Which stood untouched in her glass.</p><p>“… I’ll deal with Babs” he muttered back, laying on the chair more comfortably and bringing his hands to cup his neck, in order to stretch it lightly as he turned his face to one side and then the other.</p><p>“That doesn’t involve a shotgun, right?”.</p><p>Jason sent her a look as if to say ‘who do you take me for?’.</p><p>“… listen, your idea to deal with the police officer who slapped my ass, involved a rather violent plan, so I have my doubts about you using any pacifist plan”.</p><p>“And the offer is still on the table, solely for you, babe” he winked at her and if she wasn’t blushing before, she was definitely now.</p><p>No, need to deny it.</p><p>“Whatever you say, sweetcheeks” Laurel would play dirty if Jason did.</p><p>He just shot her an incredulous look, before diving in a boisterous laugh.</p><p>The same ones that made Laurel aware that Jason was definitely a man of passion.</p><p>He just didn’t let himself show it in front of others.</p><p>Or at least he didn’t in ways that were constructive, instead of destructive, as his rage.</p><p>“… but don’t worry” he reassured her softly, as he leaned in, gently pushing his head in the crook of her neck, a gesture that was very common between them, alongside with every small touch that made Laurel heart flutter and question their relationships “… not shotguns, for Batgirl”.</p><p>Laurel’s mouth, definitely hung open at that affirmation, meanwhile Jason turned lightly to look at her shocked expression, receiving a slap that he probably barely registered on his arm, as the girl underneath him felt almost the need to shot up and go in that kitchen and confess her love for the makes vigilante.</p><p>“Oh Gosh, you are fangirling” muttered annoyedly Jason, as he pushed himself back “… I live with a Batgirl fangirl…”.</p><p>“Listen you know I’ll always be a Red Hood fangirl, first” Laurel retorted, being the one who leaned onto Jason, as he pretended to hold some kind of grudge against her, till she started to annoy him poking with his shoulder.</p><p>As Laurel always did when she needed his attention.</p><p>Desperately.</p><p>“… you better be” he smirked, trying his tone to appear threateningly.</p><p>But after having seen him say ‘goodbye’ to all her collection of stuffed animals before a taking off for a mission, Laurel couldn’t honestly think of him as anything scary.</p><p>“… but I mean… just let me say that Batgirl is a close second”.</p><p>“Then get her to be your fake girlfriend!”.</p><hr/><p>Jason didn’t honestly want to have that conversation tonight.</p><p>After coming home from ‘that dinner’, he had wanted to stay with Laurel, instead of going to patrol that night.</p><p>Not solely because he wanted to avoid talking with Barbara (or better Oracle), but because he had noticed immediately that Laurel’s shoulder had started hurting again and when he had left, she had been trying to sleep in her own room, turning lightly to find a comfortable position.</p><p>He knew that the shoulder that was injured was the one that she slept on more often, since it was on the side that allowed her to look at the door, as if she could be ready for whatever monster might hide in the darkness.</p><p>‘It’s childish’ Laurel had muttered, once she had confessed it, after Jason had noticed her restlessness during sleep ‘… but I just feel more secure’.</p><p>And he also knew that she felt more secure in his arms.</p><p>So, it had taken everything in him to leave for patrol, mostly on Laurel’s insistence.</p><p>‘Don’t you have some goons to beat up?’ she had muttered, meanwhile she adjusted herself on bed, carefully choosing which stuffed animal to bring with her, instead of Jason.</p><p>He wasn’t definitely jealous of those stuffed bastards…</p><p>And he knew that if he had stayed, things between them… would have gotten complicated.</p><p>And he didn’t want that to happen.</p><p>At least, not yet.</p><p>So, he endured Barbara’s laughter at his expenses.</p><p>‘So, the big bad Red Hood has a girlfriend that works for the GCDP?’ she muttered in his ears, meanwhile he was running on a roof, trying to start up his own legs and discard the haziness from the wine he had drunk ‘… she is honestly my dad’s other child, so don’t you dare breaking her heart’.</p><p>“We aren’t together” he muttered, as he jumped high enough to grasp onto a loose window to push himself further up an apartment building, as he felt his phone ringing, but the watch (which Tim had ‘graciously’ repaired) showed it was solely Dick “… it was just because your father doesn’t know how to mind his business”.</p><p>“That’s true” he could almost picture Barbara’s bittersweet smirk “… but you’d make the cutest couple”.</p><p>“And Dick must not know about this, ok?” he managed to push himself on the top of the building, gaining a few minutes to calm down his breath, although it had barely accelerated.</p><p>“Is that a threat, Jason?” Jason could again picture the quirked-up brow of the redhead.</p><p>He had had a crush on Barbara.</p><p>In the end Laurel wasn’t the only one fangirling for Batgirl.</p><p>But it had been a crush.</p><p>It wasn’t comparable to that growing feeling he felt for Laurel and her pretty smile, matched with those eyes that made him feel like she could truly see him and understand him.</p><p>Which felt utterly consuming.</p><p>That would explain how she knew perfectly what to do when something happened.</p><p>Like tonight’s kiss.</p><p>She had known and she hadn’t forced herself onto Jason.</p><p>He wouldn’t have minded too much if she did.</p><p>Gosh, he had wanted to do much more to her than that since he had seen her in thigh high and a skirt waiting for him on the other side of the door.</p><p>But she was his roommate.</p><p>And whatever he had been feeling for her had to be repressed for the sake of their ‘friendship’.</p><p>And according to Jason, things always went sour when he got some kind of semblance of happiness.</p><p>“… but don’t worry, you have my silence” Barbara brought him back to reality “… although if she isn’t your girlfriend technically it isn’t such an incriminating secret”.</p><p>“You know Dick, Barbara” he simply stated as the batboy he had just named insisted with the calls, making Jason understood that it was serious “… he is a fucking bother to the world”.</p><p>“Be nice to him” reprimanded him Barbara, something similar to his own ‘threat’ about her silence in her voice “… and I won’t say a word to him, if you also promise to keep your mouth shut”.</p><p>“Deal, Oracle”.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Dick</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>And this time, who will save who when they are both undercover?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>(A/N): Hello there, lovelies!</p><p>I am going to make this quick, because I honestly need to go to bed, but I just wanted to pubblish this new chapter, although it’ll be likely ignored, but I just had to overshare my thoughts!</p><p>Also I am terrible at writing action scenes, so I am sorry if this sucks or there are points where it doesn’t make any sense...</p><p>Before you go on, I just want to put a huge disclaimer on here:</p><p>I am not a true expert, although I have followed a few comics and done a few researches about the various universe, so if anything is considered inaccurate, just send me a DM/an ask, just please do remember to be kind and not attacking.</p><p>And, if you did end up liking this silly work just let me know through a reblog or a comment or simply a like, it would certainly make me feel a bit more comfortable about my writing.</p><p>Have a nice reading!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div class="">
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    <em>“You say you're not ready </em>
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    <em>For a long time thing</em>
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    <em> It's got too hot and heavy </em>
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    <em>Not like I want a ring </em>
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    <em>You're such an over-thinker </em>
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    <em>You've given yourself the spooks </em>
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    <em>But why'd you have to fight it </em>
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    <em>When you know it's something good?”</em>
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    <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dx3K7CfG2PrA&amp;t=Y2QwMDU0ZjNkODM3YWM2MDI5YzAyY2FkMjJmOTNjNThhOTI3NjdlZCxiZTRjZTA4NmRkMDhlMjE5ZmNjZWFjNjdkYTM0ZjY1NDc0ZTYyZDkz&amp;ts=1607555221">
      <strong>‘Silly Boy’ by Call Me Loop</strong>
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</div><p>Laurel wasn’t technically allowed on the field.</p><p>Although in the days when the station was at its fullest, she had been sometimes allowed to follow some interrogatories with the purpose of writing down notes and when a female officer wasn’t in sight, she was the one who had to pat down the female perps.</p><p>Laurel had had a few run-ins even with ‘Gotham worst villains’ and Catwoman always humored when she had to check her out, although at the first distraction of the police, she would be out of their hair.</p><p>Honestly, those were a few of the funny moments that she passed at the police station.</p><p>But she had never thought that she’d be ‘this’ involved.</p><p>As in involved in an undercover mission.</p><p>Technically another detective should have taken that specific mission, but they had a private emergency and the police station had been left without a female agent for said specific mission that would happen that night.</p><p>The police detective had been chosen because they were relatively new, since a known face would have brought too many suspects.</p><p>And they had been peculiarly trained for this kind of situations.</p><p>And the police forces wanted the whole operation to go as smooth as it could be, since it was a huge one, co-operated with the Blundhaven district.</p><p>As of lately a new kind of drug had started being sold in the market and as the dealer became more confident, the GCDP had been able to follow through their trail till Madam Butterfly, a socialite of Gotham that had turned to the darkest path in order for a bit of ‘extra money’.</p><p>Her club, ‘Tale Of Eros’, had various and different perversions displayed in its cocktail menu, but they hadn’t been able to detach any kind of penalizing crime that would get and her goons arrested, but the drug trail definitely brought them close to her.</p><p>And now they needed somebody who would go to the club in one of their busiest night, in order for the police forces to catch Madam Butterfly in the act.</p><p>So, an operation that had been going on for whole months risked of being completely disrupted and the GCDP would have probably looked very very badly in letting down the Blundhaven’s forces.</p><p>They had been all desperate hearing the news of the chosen police officers being unable to make it, till Giblison had pointed out Laurel was ‘relatively new’ to the Gotham nightlife and she had ‘not that memorable face’.</p><p>“… thank you Giblison” she had simply retorted, with an annoyed tone, uncaring of the man’s affirmation, although all the eyes of the people around them had been immediately trained onto her immediately.</p><p>“Well, I am right” insisted Giblison as he turned to commissioner Gordon, definitely annoyed by this entire conversation “… boss, c’mon!”.</p><p>“Mrs. Cellini over here…” informed him slowly the commissioner with the same rhythm somebody would have for a child “… isn’t allowed to be on the field”.</p><p>“Boss… we can work through that” this time it was another detective speaking, definitely less dumb than Giblison, as he set his gaze onto Laurel, her entire face burning up at the sudden attention that made her quite uneasy “… I am sure that we’ll find a compromise”.</p><p>In the end, many of police officers around here were easy to corrupt to say the least, and simply allowing a modest secretary in an undercover mission like that would have been easy enough for everyone.</p><p>They just needed to push a few laws around and justify Laurel’s position on the field as ‘her own will’.</p><p>And honestly, Laurel wasn’t that much against that idea.</p><p>Being more and more involved in the police matters definitely was interesting for her.</p><p>She had been aching for a little adventure since she had been a little girl to try to bring help to those that needed it.</p><p>That was the main reason why she had chosen to start teaching and to channel her energy towards that ‘noble mission’.</p><p>She had actually come to Gotham under the proposal of a job offer as a teacher at the Academy.</p><p>That position, Laurel had discovered when had come to Gotham, had been already taken, and she had had to move onto finding another solution, eventually becoming a secretary at the police station, where she had certainly discovered to have enough intuition to be helpful when she wanted to.</p><p>It was also a way to say to Victoria, her sister, that Laurel wasn’t so selfish as she thought her to be.</p><p>They had had an enormous fight before she moved to Gotham, mostly because Laurel had wanted Victoria to come with her, insisting that it was their sole way to get out of their mother’s uncaring hands, to grow out of her shadow.</p><p>‘.. we don’t have to stay here and follow her footsteps, anymore, I’ll be a teacher and you’ll continue the university there!’.</p><p>But Victoria hadn’t been happy about it and had insisted that whereas Laurel did have every right to follow her dreams and ideas, she should leave Victoria to follow her own.</p><p>Which was acting.</p><p>As of lately Victoria had been considering dropping out of college and trying the actress route, having already worked as a model during the summer to buy a few things without having to rely on Estelle or Laurel.</p><p>Their mother Cristiana (or better Estelle) had been rather happy of that choice, supporting it and talking about it through every media.</p><p>‘… I am not an academic prodigy like you’ had shot back Victoria at Laurel, the last time they had spoken about such amatter ‘… and I’ll never be, but I am good at acting and mom told me that she’ll get me some small parts…’.</p><p>‘Yeah of course’ Laurel’s tone had been disenchanted, since she knew too well her mother to believe that she would let Victoria steal her thunder like that.</p><p>The sole reason why she had allowed Victoria to follow on her footsteps was to ride the wave of renewed popularity that her daughter would have given her.</p><p>‘… mom won’t get you anything that won’t benefit her too’.</p><p>‘Then fucking let me do my own mistakes!’ Victoria’s tone had pained Laurel greatly, because she had shielded her sister from everything, avoiding making her witness her mother’s most destructive moments and the gratitude that she was given was her sister treating her like a crazy woman.</p><p>She had left without saluting Victoria.</p><p>It had felt nice to do that back then, but right now it felt painfully wrong and she couldn’t deny that she regretted it each day that she and her sister ignored each other.</p><p>It made her feel painfully alone.</p><p>That was why she attached herself to any lost cause that she found.</p><p>If she couldn’t protect Victoria, she had to do it to somebody else.</p><p>“… we’ll manage another way” dismissed any hope commissioner Gordon and Laurel simply pushed her head back, trying to look at him who was standing behind her chair, to catch his attention.</p><p>“I can do it” technically it was easier to say that than to think what it would entail.</p><p>“No, you won’t” shot her down immediately Jim, looking down at her in the eyes, hoping to dismiss any rebellious thought in Laurel “… you aren’t trained, and you haven’t been in an undercover before”.</p><p>“She’ll be sided with an expert detective from Blundhaven” replied another detective.</p><p>They probably thought that attacking all together their boss would have allowed him to believe everything that she said.</p><p>“… and it isn’t anything more than a hit and run”.</p><p>Because technically the sole purpose of the undercover agent was to get some images and possibly a confession, then with an excuse they would have exited the building, before the police forces swarmed in.</p><p>“… she isn’t trained to handle situations like this, even more if it’ll go bad” replied tightly Jim “… she got shot a few weeks ago, can’t you guys seriously see why this is a horrible idea?!”.</p><p>They could all see that it was an awful idea.</p><p>But they were all desperate.</p><p>“… and she can’t shoot a gun”.</p><p>“Technically I can”.</p><p>Jim shot her a confused look, mostly because in her curriculum she hadn’t mentioned anything about any ability with weapons or having a permit to shoot.</p><p>And that was because she hadn’t touched a weapon till Jason had brought her to the shooting range.</p><p>He had taught her not only how to handle one, but also how to properly dismantle one and how to disarm an armed attacker.</p><p>Although she didn’t carry a gun with her, not having one registered, she would have known how to deal with one.</p><p>So, she could technically shoot a gun.</p><p>Her aim was terrible but…</p><p>Jim shot her a confused look, almost fatherly disappointment in the deep eyes.</p><p>“… see boss?!” insisted Giblison “… she’ll be perfect”.</p><p>“I’ll talk with the Blundhaven’s commissioner” it wasn’t a proper reply, but Jim had obviously understood that this wasn’t something that was in his control anymore, and he hoped that the Blundhaven’s commissioner would be smarter than his officers.</p><p>But apparently, he was wrong.</p><p>And Pearl, thirty minutes later, was asking Laurel whether she had nice clothes or not.</p><p>She hadn’t understood the true danger of this till she had worn the outfit of the night.</p><p>Technically she’d be wearing a layer of Kevlar and underneath the dress she had chosen, alongside some microphones in order to hear everything that was going on.</p><p>Her partner would have cameras on his own outfit, and this choice had taken into consideration Laurel’s inexperience, since microphones were easier to hide and easier to make disappear in case they were patted down and discovered.</p><p>They had gone over various codes and plans, in case anything happened and although Laurel wasn’t trained, she had shown to be quite flexible in the various schemes and eventually Jim had been reassured enough that he had diminished a bit the worried frown on his face.</p><p>He still had seemed worried when she had gone back at home to get ready.</p><p>Pearl had told her that she’d have to wear something that seemed to come straight up from a runaway and had even suggested that she came home to take care of her, but Laurel didn’t solely have her own peculiar tastes and rituals when it came to her beauty, but she was scared that Pearl might catch Jason, coming back from the latest mission he was on.</p><p>All dressed up in the Red Hood suit.</p><p>That was another reason why she had accepted the mission.</p><p>She had lost half of her self-control, without him.</p><p>And now here she was in a pretty dress, trying to ease her breath as she realized that tonight she would be going undercover in one of the most exclusive clubs with somebody that she didn’t know.</p><p>And she had barely an hour to calm down.</p><p>She knew that it was too late for her to reject all of this, and just go back to her nightly routine.</p><p>But she was painfully stubborn.</p><p>Both for bad and good things.</p><p>Still, seeing herself in that outfit was already enough scary.</p><p>Technically the dress wasn’t hers.</p><p>She had stolen it from her mother before moving in Gotham.</p><p>She didn’t know whether she had done it to have something of her mother or simply to piss er off, either way, now that she had it on, after it had been adjusted to fit her body, she couldn’t help but see how similar she and her mother looked like.</p><p>Although Laurel hadn’t a single physical quality that matched her mother, she had taken after her mother her color scheme and with the dress on she somehow seemed so similar to her that it almost made her want to rip the dress off right her skin.</p><p>It just made her feel like that one time when she was younger when she had tried on a dress that her mother had used for a movie, thinking of looking exactly like her, but sadly she had clumsily ripped it and her mother had literally slapped her in front of baby Victoria, saying that ‘she was a disappointment to her’.</p><p>She knew that she could change out of it, she had at least half an hour, before she was supposed to be picked up by Pearl to go to the meeting point, where all that was left to do was for her to be strapped with microphones.</p><p>But she couldn’t help but think that any other dress would have looked cheaper than the one she had on.</p><p>Still, she diverted her eyes from the mirror.</p><p>And didn’t notice the figure looming behind her.</p><p>Till Jason called out to her.</p><p>“Well, don’t you look delicious enough to eat” her hand immediately went to grab the hair straightener that was on top of her vanity, ready to use it as a weapon, although Jason promptly got his head out of his helmet and showed her his hands “… it’s just me, ‘Rel”.</p><p>Well, now she could let herself blush.</p><p>“… fucking fuck” she breathed out, as she slowly lowered the hair straightener “… you know… just a ‘hey ‘Rel I am coming back’ message… would save me from a heart attack”.</p><p>“Yeah, but that wouldn’t be funny” replied Jason, coming closer as he left the helmet on ‘her beside-table’ although technically it had become his, since he slept on that side “… not that I am not enjoying the view… but what is the occasion?”.</p><p>Oh shit.</p><p>She could have mentioned that she was going out with Pearl.</p><p>But the whole fake boyfriend act that Jason had put on, had been extended also to her own job, mostly because once Laurel had ‘forgotten’ her lunch and Jason, like the housewife he was, had brought it to her, with even a cute heart-shaped card.</p><p>And it had caught the attention of the whole department.</p><p>Even more Pearl, her friend there.</p><p>And Pearl and he had started being friends.</p><p>Which wasn’t the best combo, because Pearl loved teasing her.</p><p>And Jason loved seeing her flustered.</p><p>Pearl had actully tried to get Jason to promise to hang out together.</p><p>So, she was sure that if he told him that he was going out with Pearl, he’d ask to join in.</p><p>And she’d have revealed soon enough that it was all an ugly li.</p><p>So, she went with the next option.</p><p>“… I have… a date”.</p><p>She couldn’t… she couldn’t have just seriously said that.</p><p>And honestly, she thought that for a moment Jason’s silence meant that he would be laughing at the absurdity of the situation, because there was no way that she could get a date.</p><p>Except he didn’t say anything or laugh at the absurdity.</p><p>He just looked at her as if she had just told him that she had murdered his childhood animal.</p><p>“… ahem…” ‘Laurel, you can do it’ “… I mean… I wanted to tell you, but it was sudden…”.</p><p>“You are going out with some kind of stranger?” somehow Laurel couldn’t help but think that strangely he seemed somehow angry with her and she didn’t understand why, although she guessed it could all be related to his overprotectiveness for her “… that’s dangerous and technically I am your boyfriend”.</p><p>“I am not going out with a stranger!” she technically was, but she wasn’t certainly going to tell him “… and just because you are my fake boyfriend, it doesn’t mean that I want you to be my own boyfriend”.</p><p>Laurel immediately regretted the words once they exited her mouth.</p><p>She didn’t even know why she said such a thing.</p><p>Except for the need to hurt Jason.</p><p>To make him back off.</p><p>She had gained it after her mother and she couldn’t help but hiss after the words left her mouth both because of that reminder and both because she could almost feel Jason’s hurt, although his face was lightly hidden by the shadows in the room.</p><p>“.. I am sorry, Jason… that was uncalled of…”.</p><p>“No, you are right” he simply muttered back, his tone was so plain that it was as cutting as a papercut, small but painful “… I just overstepped something”.</p><p>He hadn’t.</p><p>But Laurel couldn’t just admit the truth in his face.</p><p>He wouldn’t have been happy in the slightest about hearing that she was willingly putting her ass in danger and he would have insisted that she dropped off the mission.</p><p>But Laurel felt like she couldn’t.</p><p>And the lie and her cutting reply were enough to open a hole between them in that moment, making her nervous and silent, not knowing what she could say because Jason was evidently shocked, but he didn’t want to admit how hurtful she had been for him.</p><p>And offering anymore apologies would have just destroyed the sense of his ego.</p><p>Toxic ego.</p><p>But that wasn’t a talk that Laurel and Jason had reached.</p><p>She was cut out by so many parts of him that sometimes it felt like having a stranger in her own house, and it wasn’t frightening, but it was unsettling.</p><p>Still, Laurel had her own secrets and Jason didn’t push to know them.</p><p>That was the main reason behind their mutual help: they took care of each other without asking too many questions.</p><p>“… take a jacket to the date” Jason’s voice seemed more distant, and Laurel saw him turn around and grab the helmet, as if he hadn’t come home right now, probably famished and in need of sleep.</p><p>But when he had this kind of moods, when he and Laurel ‘got awkward’, he wasn’t rational.</p><p>“… it is cold outside” he muttered as he pushed himself on the window, opening it slowly and letting a light breeze into her room, almost a spiteful gesture against the cold-blooded Laurel, constantly in need of sun and warmth “… I’ll go on patrol”.</p><p>It was his way of saying ‘I need a time out’.</p><p>And as much as anything in Laurel screamed at her to follow him, she couldn’t.</p><p>Not simply because she would be running late for her own ‘date’, but because it would have been like running to an unknown destination, in search of somebody that obviously didn’t want Laurel nearby.</p><p>And yet…</p><p>… there was some kind of truth in her annoyance towards Jason’s attitude.</p><p>The ‘I-am-not-your-boyfriend-but-I-your-fake-boyfriend’ one.</p><p>Because he seemed to have his own fun flirting with her, as if they were truly a couple.</p><p>And when they were close to feeling like a true couple, he pushed one step back.</p><p>And yet, she couldn’t blame him and neither she could simply push him into something that he wasn’t ready to.</p><p>That would have transformed Laurel into her mother.</p><p>And she would have run out of Gotham before that happened.</p><p>With another worry in her heart, she did choose an appropriate jacket for the weather outside and adjusted her heels, already uncomfortable on the thin surface that held up her ankles, and then moved outside, inserting the alarm and locking the door.</p><p>But she left the locks at the window open.</p><p>She’d be always here to talk with Jason, although he could be ‘difficult’.</p><p>He just hoped that he would do same for her.</p><p>Technically she should have known the name of the agent that had been matched to her for the mission, since this afternoon, but the agent matched with the previous agent had actually been changed this way they would pair an expert agent…</p><p>… with a newbie.</p><p>That wasn’t even a cop.</p><p>She couldn’t blame them.</p><p>So, she was also slowly starting to get anxious to discover who she’d be paired with.</p><p>Her major worries were focused onto the partner being some old creep or an arrogant asshole.</p><p>She would have handled both of them, but she would have been on edge the whole time.</p><p>‘… you’ll be the “arm candy”, you only have to bat your eyelashes and smirk softly, not a word if it isn’t needed and neither any kind of sassiness’ had explained to her commissioner Gordon, as he waggled a finger to reinforce all of this, meanwhile Pearl, behind him tried not to erupt in a boisterous laughter, back at the station that afternoon.</p><p>‘So, basically I have to be a vegetable’ Laurel retorted slowly ‘… don’t worry, boss, I have a perfect knowledge in smiling and standing still, I used to go to red carpet and stand beside the nearest emergency exist’.</p><p>‘Don’t laugh about this, Laurel’ Jim was obviously worried and somehow Laurel felt a bit cherished at that interest in her, used as a lonely child to being the discardable item, the one that nobody wanted truly ‘… just do the minimum and don’t forget to smile’.</p><p>“… Earth to Lau! Earth to Lau!” called out to her Pearl and  Laurel focused again onto the place in which she and Pearl were adjusting the last touches to her whole outfit, the microphones that were hidden her luxurious earrings and another one in the collier she had been given to wear “… is everything alright?”.</p><p>“Yeah, just… thinking about which old detective I’ll get for the night” she wasn’t reassured by the fact that inside of the various vans that were used by the detectives to control and monitor the situation, she had seen people of the same age as of Jim Gordon and older.</p><p>And Giblison.</p><p>Which wasn’t reassuring.</p><p>“Oh, you didn’t know?” something sparkled in Pearl’s eyes as soon as she noticed Laurel’s lack of knowledge about the matter “… well, apparently you’ll get one of the hottest detectives of Blundhaven”.</p><p>As she was halfway through adding more information to a rather concerned Laurel, when they were interrupted by a light knock in their own van, and a head peaking out of the open door once Pearl told him to ‘come forward’.</p><p>And Dick Grayson appeared into Laurel’s line of sight.</p><p>And a small look at Pearl did confirm her that apparently, he was her partner for the mission.</p><p>Destiny honestly decided to screw with her, that night.</p><p>She did know that Dick Grayson wasn’t simply Bruce’s eldest ward and a detective of the Blundhaven police forces, but also Nightwing.</p><p>Technically Jason hadn’t told her anything about his own brothers and their secret identities.</p><p>But he had confessed to her his story, the sole part of Jason that she truly knew.</p><p>The others were a mix of Red Hood and the new Jason that had risen from the Lazarus Pit.</p><p>And she knew that Jason Todd, the second Robin, was long gone and forgotten, although she saw glimpses of him when he smiled at her.</p><p>And in those few times he did she felt like for once, everything would be honestly alright.</p><p>After Jason had confessed her his story, it hadn’t been difficult for Laurel to understand that Batman had to obviously be Bruce Wayne, Jason’s adoptive father, and the rest of the Robins and Batgirls all people related to them, although many of the identities of the Batgirls were unknown to her.</p><p>Except Barbara.</p><p>Or better… Oracle.</p><p>‘Please don’t fucking say Nightwing, instead of Dick Grayson’ she cursed mentally as Dick came forward, probably having been already fit for the mission and wanting to introduce himself ‘… don’t fucking say Nightwing, Laurel, fucking please…’.</p><p>“Detective Dick Grayson” he offered his hand to Laurel and gentlemanly went for a light kiss on the back of her hand, making Laurel blush and Pearl cackle a badly covered laugh.</p><p>Dick had been described in a ‘colorful’ way by Jason</p><p>As any younger sibling would have described an older one who matched the perfect stereotype.</p><p>She couldn’t help but think that Victoria wouldn’t have had kind words for her, neither.</p><p>But she could see some semblance of respect in Jason’s words.</p><p>And as she took in Dick Grayson’s slim form, well she also understood Pearl’s words.</p><p>He was handsome.</p><p>And he was waiting for an answer from her.</p><p>“… ahem… Laurel… Laurel Cellini” ‘a hot mess in an elegant suit’.</p><p>“A pleasure to meet you” he pushed further up his hand, evidently to show it to her, since she looked like an idiot who had no clue what was going.</p><p>The perfect first impression.</p><p>“… ahem, for me too”.</p><p>Pearl, in the meanwhile, didn’t even try to help her.</p><p>She simply looked at her as if she was a few minutes from exploding in a full fit of laughter.</p><p>“Are you all set?” he asked, and Laurel honestly expected him to touch her Kevlar to check it out, which would have involved touching her very exposed chest, but he just waited for Pearl to confirm that they were all set.</p><p>Probably because he had understood that he wouldn’t get too many answers from Laurel.</p><p>“… then I think that they are waiting for us outside, for a small retcon before everything goes down”.</p><p>“Yeah, I’ll… I have to talk with Pearl, and then I’ll be with you” because there wasn’t any way that she could have had a proper conversation with commissioner Gordon if Dicky Grayson was nearby.</p><p>Mostly without going ‘please hug your brother, he kind of wants a hug but won’t ask you’.</p><p>Dick nodded gently and retreated, saluting Pearl, who as soon as he was out shot Laurel a smirk.</p><p>“Oh Gosh, isn’t he dreamy?”.</p><p>“Are you sure that a bit of tequila before going inside would be a bad idea?” Laurel simply shot back “… please tell me that we have some tequila stashed somewhere…”.</p><p>“Oh c’mon!” retorted softly Pearl, smacking her friend’s shoulder, the injured one that made Laurel almost screech in pain “… actually… I’ll see if they have a secret stash”.</p><p>“Love you” muttered Laurel, before she heard her name being called out “… and if I don’t come back please let… do take my lovely plant Vivian with you”.</p><p>“Do you want me to call Jensen?” asked softly Pearl, as they moved out of the trailer they had been working with, making Laurel almost stumble in her step “… got into a fight with him?”.</p><p>“Tonight, isn’t my night” replied Laurel, adjusting her hand and getting a better hold on her high heeled feet.</p><p>“Then do console yourself with detective Grayson” retorted Pearl with a wiggle of her eyebrows “… and Jensen will be back to you in the morning, he is completely and utterly enamored with you”.</p><p>“I do hope so” she shot back, with a deep huff, before the rest of the phrase hit deeply Laurel, making her realize that Pearl had just mentioned that Jason looked in love with her, which wasn’t just possible, but… “… and did you just …”.</p><p>“Laurel!” called her one more time commissioner Gordon.</p><p>And she realized that for the moment it was better if she forgot about Jason and Jensen.</p><p>And just focused on getting out alive.</p><p>A few minutes later, she was in the chauffeured sport car, ready for the ‘night of their lives’.</p><p>‘We’ll use Dick’s fame in Gotham to get you both inside the place’ explained the detective of Blundhaven, as Dick seemed almost shy at the mention of his name, but Laurel had been trying to simply focus on staying there in that moment and not follow in her overthinking ways.</p><p>Laurel honestly wasn’t convinced by the choice of Dick as a partner, mostly because he kind of was a known figure in Gotham, although he had made sure to cover his tracks since he had moved on Blundhaven.</p><p>Still, the Tales of Eros was quite known for being exclusive so Dick’s fame could be the sole way to enter it, without raising eyebrows.</p><p>‘… Mrs. Cellini, you’ll have to be the arm candy’ which was a nice way to tell her to smile, be gentle and keep her mouth rightly shut ‘… just be sure to investigate about the violations we have been informed to give us proof to enter inside with a permit’.</p><p>It did seem easy.</p><p>But since Laurel had been left alone in the backseat of the car, she had started thinking about everything that could go wrong, unable to distract herself in any way, closed in the small place, with Dick, who beside her looked as uncomfortable.</p><p>She knew from what Jason had told her that Dick was a smart man, an excellent person and ‘better than him in so many ways’, but the way his own superior had talked about him seemed almost as if he was there only for his fame.</p><p>And that wasn’t a nice reputation to have around the police forces.</p><p>As somebody who had her own piece of ‘heavy fame coming from her parents’, Laurel knew that it was some kind of reminder that everybody had expectations for her, without even knowing her personally.</p><p>And it was difficult to satisfy them.</p><p>And even more to understand that it wasn’t necessary.</p><p>Because if you didn’t you were simply there because of mother or father.</p><p>She was halfway through asking whether they could turn on the radio nor not, when Dick shifted a bit and turned to face her, pushing lightly his back onto the side of the backseat, careful to leave a bit of space between him and Laurel.</p><p>And she was thankful for it.</p><p>And a bit blushy, because she got to look into those pretty eyes.</p><p>They were truly ocean blue in the same way the ocean had its own trait grey and darkness.</p><p>Jason’s were unnaturally blue with a greenish glow that had been one of the results of the Lazarus’ Pit.</p><p>That detail made him hate that trait dearly.</p><p>So unnatural that obviously anybody had its gaze focused on them.</p><p>And it just made Jason feel more uncomfortable.</p><p>Still, Laurel thought they were beautiful.</p><p>But she knew better than to voice out those thoughts.</p><p>Because Jason could flirt her up with all the compliments of the world, but each time she’d do the same talking about his own handsome physique, he’d brush it off as a joke and even pretend not to have heard it.</p><p>She had soon learned that the only way he would actually accept her compliments was directing them towards his manual skills, such as his ability to cook and to fix many of the problematics around Laurel’s old apartment.</p><p>It was always about what he could bring in their relationship.</p><p>Not what he was.</p><p>“… since you are supposed to be my partner…” Laurel was honestly happy that he didn’t use the ‘arm candy’ definition, because although she was glad not to have to be the one doing all the talking, she still found the term a bit unflattering.</p><p>Almost as if she was some kind of sack of potatoes on Dick’s shoulders.</p><p>Instead ‘partner’ almost made them seem equal.</p><p>“… is there any place you wouldn’t like me to touch?”.</p><p>It took Laurel a few good minutes to understand what Dick truly meant.</p><p>Mostly because if there was one thing that everyone seemed to know was the fact that the beautiful detective with the most perfect blue eyes was one talented playboy, definitely having inherited ‘that talent’ from Bruce Wayne.</p><p>She knew that also Jason could be charming when he wanted to, but when he meant to truly, when he wanted to honestly compliment her, he would just blabber in a silly way, that made Laurel honestly want to kiss him.</p><p>But Dick, right now, seemed almost unsure with her.</p><p>Careful, as one with a dog that he didn’t know whether he’d bite him if he pushed a hand forward to pet him.</p><p>“Ahem…” honestly Laurel didn’t think that there was any true place that was off-limits in her body.</p><p>But as she thought about Dick’s question, she couldn’t help but picture Jason’s hands gently pushing themselves up her body, in small gestures that constantly happened, whenever they were together in a mixture of tenderness and gentleness.</p><p>And something more.</p><p>That neither Laurel or Jason wanted to acknowledge.</p><p>Such as whenever he’d pass his hands through her hair knowing that it eased her mind and made sure that she fell asleep.</p><p>No matter the fact that she had told him that she needed to stay asleep to finish some project for the police station.</p><p>Whenever she’d sit onto him comfortably, plopping down on him, meanwhile he read because the sofa seemed suddenly too cold and she just wanted to use a bit of his own body heat, doing the annoying gesture of pushing herself underneath Jason’s enormous sweatshirt.</p><p>‘You’ll get it stretched’ he always complained, but never made to do anything to get her to exit the safe hold of his outfit, instead, adjusting his book at her level so she could read with him, if he was reading, or the computer, if he was watching something.</p><p>“… my hips… I mean…” she felt silly saying it, but Dick’s eyes were limpid no further intention in them “… I am ticklish, so it’s more like… a warning for you”.</p><p>She had elbowed Jason right in the face once he had tried ‘the tickle attack’ on here.</p><p>“… gotcha” now Dick had a lightly happier face, definitely more at ease now that they had started talking “… I’ll avoid also the… you know… intimate areas… but just know that if I’ll have to kiss you, I’ll avoid touching your hips, alright?”.</p><p>The idea of actually kissing him would have sounded heavenly to any woman.</p><p>He certainly seemed to know what had to be done with the carnal slope of his plump lips.</p><p>But Laurel couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty and uncomfortable about the thought of kissing Dick, with everything that was going on with Jason.</p><p>Technically it hadn’t been a lover’s quarrel.</p><p>And yet, it felt like one.</p><p>“What about you?” she shot back the question to Dick, completely catching him off-guard “… any off-limits points to avoid?”.</p><p>And again, Dick seemed almost even more shocked at her explanation.</p><p>As if nobody had ever asked him something like that.</p><p>And Laurel’s heart filled with a sad tenderness.</p><p>According to Jason ‘Dick always had everything easier’.</p><p>“He just needs a smile to convince everyone”.</p><p>And right now, Laurel just wanted to tell Jason that it wasn’t actually that easy.</p><p>And that it wasn’t always… as comfortable as he pictured it.</p><p>“Ah… actually… I just… don’t have any off-limits zones, I mean just…” he almost seemed to think it through for a moment “… ok this is stupid, but please don’t slap my ass”.</p><p>Not that she intended to, although it was a rather tempting sight.</p><p>Still, she personally wouldn’t have liked anybody slapping her ass, so she wouldn’t have ever dared to try it with somebody else.</p><p>“… don’t worry, although it is tempting, I’ll keep my hands to myself” she muttered “… but may I ask your training routine to keep it that way, because I honestly need it and I am sure that Pearl will bug me till she also gets it”.</p><p>“If tonight goes well, I’ll share the secret to the eternal bounciness with you, miss. Cellini” he joked with a serious impression that didn’t reach his eyes fully, but twinkled with a mischievousness that made her smirk softly.</p><p>“I am truly thankful for that” she shot back with an honest expression that made them both erupt in a big laugh.</p><p>They managed to small-talk a bit around the whole ‘bootilicious content’ and then a ‘less-awkward-than-before’ silence filled them, right as Laurel noticed that they were coming closer to the ‘Tale of Eros’, and the chauffeur, an undercover cop exactly like them, circled the block to enter a private underground parking lot.</p><p>Red light shone upon her face from the electric logo of the club.</p><p>And it inevitably caught the attention of Dick onto Laurel’s face.</p><p>And she realized that he wasn’t trying to understand who she might be in an undercover mission, right now.</p><p>He was admiring her.</p><p>Laurel blushed, although there was no desire in his eyes to further up their knowledge in a more… sensual way.</p><p>He looked at her as if she was some kind of painting.</p><p>Her face was her best trait, mostly for her light eyes, mixed with a light muddy brown that ruined completely any kind of ‘naiad’ vibe they might own.</p><p>But according to Victoria they revealed that she wasn’t a cyborg.</p><p>She had a small nose, nothing too extraordinary and a tight small mouth, but with a feminine form that made it appear tempting and always lightly quirked in a light smile.</p><p>A bad imitation of her mother’s acclaimed smirk.</p><p>Which was practically a smirk with teeth barely showing underneath her plump lips and lightly quirked, in what looked like the start of a smile, almost as if Estelle Cel was offering something to who might manage to make her mouth open in a full smile.</p><p>Which Laurel had never seen happening…</p><p>Laurel was a pallid memory of her.</p><p>But her face was the most Estelle’s trait that she owned.</p><p>“…have you ever been told that you look like that actress…” Dick seemed to think, right as Laurel’s eyes filled themselves with complete unease “… Estelle… something… I think… I saw one of her movies, one night…”.</p><p>“No, I haven’t” her petty tone probably revealed that she was lying, but much to Dick’s favor, he didn’t say anything else, instead offering to help her outside of the car, right as it was parked, and the undercover agent, who had driven them there, wished them both ‘good luck’.</p><p>“Chin up, and you do remember the emergency codes?” asked Dick, his tone immediately becoming somehow colder as if he was slowly getting into the role he would have to keep on for the rest of the night.</p><p>Laurel nodded, remembering both the ‘safe-word’ (champagne) and that, if they found themselves in any situation where they weren’t able to have a verbal communication, she’d have to simply raise a bit the hem of her dress, and then dip down to adjust the straps of her heels.</p><p>“… I do” she even nodded to show her full understanding and Dick was careful and waited for her to face him to be sure, before he breathed out loudly and when he managed to huff out the last of his breaths, a devious smile appeared on his face.</p><p>Laurel tried to imitate it.</p><p>Badly.</p><p>And they moved onto the elevator that would have brought them to the club.</p><p>And once the doors opened for them, the bodyguards simply needed a quick look to Dick’s elegant suit and Laurel’s tight dress to let them in.</p><p>And they were pushed into the crazed mess that the ‘Tale of Eros’ was.</p><p>They had everything for every taste and Laurel counted at least fifteen law infractions since she first came to witness the whole place, decorated in a decadent Rococo style, that had its own accent of technology in the various flat screens set up on the walls.</p><p>Installed, both to make others witness the sinful ways of what looked like a rather illegal casino, and both to make the perpetrators witness their own actions.</p><p>And Laurel knew that they could also be a perfect material to blackmail various of the guests in the casino to keep their mouths shut.</p><p>Committing the various crimes present, already, mostly involving drugs, illegal gambling and solicitation, Laurel could spot various high-end figures of Gotham, completely comfortable in the corrupt setting that they had sworn to protect.</p><p>She now understood perfectly why the various police officers hadn’t been worried about Dick Grayson’s reputation.</p><p>Many of the people around them were of the caliber of the boy on whose arm Laurel hung on, as they proceeded inside, moving to an emptier angle and being careful to keep their hidden microphones and cameras up onto the faces of those around them.</p><p>They all thought themselves to be too arrogant to be caught.</p><p>Because in the end that was what truly was Gotham’s cancer.</p><p>Not the lunatics going around in spandex.</p><p>But the corruption of its richer class.</p><p>On one side, Laurel would have never fully approved Jason’s methods, mostly because to her everybody should be given a second chance, but she could understand why he thought that it was the sole way to cure Gotham.</p><p>“… is anything that is particularly attracting you interest?” mumbled Dick, right onto her ear, in a way that was too close for comfort and she couldn’t help but feel a bit startled by this approach, regretting not having said more about her personal boundaries.</p><p>Thankfully, Dick caught her body language and lightly pushed himself back, to allow her to breath.</p><p>“… not really” Laurel muttered, unsure of what she was supposed to be doing, mostly because most of the proofs they were witnessing would have been hidden easily with a good lawyer and a few dirty cops, so they needed more.</p><p>They needed to find the origin to all of this.</p><p>They needed to find Madam Butterfly.</p><p>But the woman was as elusive as her club was elitist.</p><p>She didn’t mingle with mortals.</p><p>Although tonight she was technically supposed to be there, according to all the info they had managed to collect.</p><p>“We have to do something to make us seem more at ease” muttered Dick, sending a meaningful look to the various activities around them.</p><p>A few men were contracting on the price of some coke lines, meanwhile the women beside them offered their naked breasts as a surface for them to sniff off the white substance.</p><p>Not too far a few older women were flirting with boys completely shirtless and collared, in a way that seemed to Laurel more like an economic transaction, in which they were asking the price of feeling alive for one more night.</p><p>And finally, there was the poker table.</p><p>It caught her attention immediately.</p><p>And the interest sparkling in her eyes definitely didn’t pass unnoticed to Dick, who mumbled with a genuine smirk on his face.</p><p>“Sorry, but… I don’t think that you’d like to see me losing, right on our first date”.</p><p>She did blush a bit at the mention of this entire thing as a ‘date’.</p><p>And her guilt towards Jason just intensified.</p><p>Gosh, they weren’t even together!</p><p>… although… if it had depended on her…</p><p>Gosh no, she couldn’t allow herself to overthink anything that was remotely happy for her.</p><p>Because it wouldn’t have worked in the end.</p><p>“… well, I can… play” she mumbled shyly, catching off guard Dick “… I kind of… was a lonely child”.</p><p>“Honestly… I’d like to say something about the fact that ‘lonely children’ don’t usually learn how to play poker’, but as a lonely child who learned acrobatics, I don’t think that I can say anything without sounding like a hypocrite”.</p><p>Here was the mumbled and ushered chatter that Jason had told her about, when talking about Dick.</p><p>“… that explains so much” she shot back, and Dick sent her a look as if to say ‘what do you mean’ before asking the question out loud, obviously not loud enough to attract attention, but it was a genuine interaction between them.</p><p>And she just had her own fun tormenting him, as they both came onto poker table, after they had exchanged a few thousands of dollars for fiches, which Laurel wasn’t sure that came from the police funds.</p><p>No matter that, she would try desperately not to lose them.</p><p>“… don’t lose them, all” commented Dick with a light annoyance to his tone, playing perfectly his role, and for a moment, just a moment… Laurel felt like she was just stuck in that second, not as her own undercover persona and neither as Estelle Cel’s daughter.</p><p>But as Laurel.</p><p>“Oh, don’t worry” she smirked with a lightness in his tone that was unlike her, but it did work well for the situation they were in.</p><p>She had learned how to play poker from her mother’s bodyguard, Willis, a tough man, coming from the military forces and with a family that hadn’t fully worked on his shoulder but he loved dearly, hence his ability to deal with both Laurel and Victoria.</p><p>When he first came in their life Laurel had been barely, meanwhile Victoria was six.</p><p>Laurel could still remember that that was the age in which she would be always holding her sheep stuffy, a gift of Laurel that she had bought with the few money she had managed to steal from her mother’s wallet to buy something for Victoria’s birthday, faking that it had been her mother getting it for her.</p><p>Because Estelle had forgotten about it.</p><p>Willis had been hired as a bodyguard, but he ended up being more a babysitter to both Victoria and Laurel, since her mother would many times sneak out for ‘her own adventures’ without letting the bodyguard know and instead the woman insisted that he ‘guarded the babies’.</p><p>‘Her prized treasure’.</p><p>Laurel still didn’t think those affirmations true.</p><p>But in the following years she had hung onto them desperately.</p><p>Trying to find the moments when her mother had shown her a bit of love.</p><p>Willis had then thought that he could teach the children a few tricks that would have been useful to ‘impress the boys’ and had taught both the children how to pick locks, punch somebody in the nose properly and finally poker.</p><p>Victoria wasn’t truly good at it, but Laurel was amazing at it.</p><p>One time, Jason had jokingly proposed a strip-poker battle, and he had been left in his boxers on their last round of the card game, with Laurel insisting that he just kept them on ‘to shield her own innocent eyes’, although she had won and he needed to strip.</p><p>Although he had been cocky at first, as soon as Laurel’s eyes had lowered themselves down onto his muscled body, he had almost shied away.</p><p>He hadn’t moved to cover himself with his own clothes, but he had definitely expressed in a physical way his closure towards her, crossing his arms.</p><p>And Laurel, who knew it all about body image issues, had just moved forward.</p><p>Something in their bodies not touching each other but lingering in a way was damnably alluring as she discarded softly her own shirt.</p><p>She hadn’t as many scars as Jason, although there was an ugly one beneath her breast, from when her mother had ‘accidentally’ burned her with a cigarette.</p><p>It had never properly healed and in the few times Laurel had shown herself naked to others, it had been revealed, since she had kept her shirt on for all ‘romantic adventures’.</p><p>She wasn’t ashamed of that scar.</p><p>But of the softness to her body that she knew her mother disapproved of.</p><p>She had tried desperately doing better, through training and through diets, but those chubby lips and soft thighs had never disappeared fully leaving Laurel to always question her own self-worth, thinking it was simply based upon that tenderness of her skin and those whitish scars that came from her own hate towards the body that her mother hadn’t wanted.</p><p>Jason and Laurel hadn’t spoken to each other after they had taken in their own ‘shameful bodies’, but they had touched the body of the other.</p><p>Gentle and soft, tracing and memorizing with a stupor that got Laurel to almost feel shy underneath Jason’s beautiful gaze, as if she had something to be ashamed of, as he felt towards his scars.</p><p>And then he had just looked at her as if it meant the world to be there on his knees before her.</p><p>But that mental image wouldn’t have certainly helped in winning at the poker table, where older men regarded her with the least respect, almost not acknowledging Laurel’s presence, although she felt some very obvious look at her curves and expensive jewels.</p><p>The feeling of not being in the proper place making her heart rate speed up, but Dick was gallantly by her side and waved down anyone that made Laurel seem uncomfortable, offering the fiche and asking: ‘how much to join’.</p><p>“Are you trying to disappoint, daddy, Dick?” commented a man that looked old enough to be Laurel’s father, his breath already smelling of cheap alcohol and from the small pile of fiches, she could understand the thought process behind that choice “… it’s five hundred to start”.</p><p>And all the eyes were set upon her, as Dick helped her up onto the elegant high-chair to come face to face with the other players, their gaze becoming more lustful and this time Dick’s light annoyed glance wasn’t much useful and she showed one of circumstance at each and every one of them.</p><p>Laurel would have gladly handcuffed a few of them, once this was finished.</p><p>“… technically the lucky charms don’t sit down at the poker tables…” commented another man, this time younger but with a smirk to himself that made him feel dangerous to Laurel, much more than any masked goon she had come face to face with, during her staying in Gotcham “… but we’ll make an exception since you’ll need all the luck possible, Dick”.</p><p>“Oh no, you don’t understand” Dick’s tone was calm, but it had that ‘I’ll break you into tiny pieces’ vibe that everybody seemed to take in a tense breath, after those few words “… my lovely partner will be the one dealing the cards not me”.</p><p>A minute of silence passed and then the elegantly dressed card-dealer, after he had adjusted the tight silver ring that kept his pristine shirt down, moved to gently put the deck of cards down, evidently wanting to attract everybody’s attention.</p><p>But in that moment it was on Laurel.</p><p>She knew that she should have felt almost afraid.</p><p>She had never liked being at the center of the attention.</p><p>It meant exposing yourself to people that didn’t know anything about you.</p><p>And in most cases weren’t interested in fully getting to know.</p><p>But hidden underneath a hand of cards, used as a fan, she smirked, knowing that half of these men didn’t know what they had truly gotten themselves in.</p><p>Half an hour later, Laurel had managed to double the money they had started with and Dick had basically had to almost pry her away from the poker table, mostly because the men were staring at her as if they wanted nothing more than to make her pay for her own insolence</p><p>And meanwhile she went away from the table, she smirked insolently to all of them.</p><p>Jason would have equally hated her for putting herself in danger and loved the fact that she copied so brilliantly his own ‘shit-eating grin’.</p><p>And the sole thought of it made her more than happy to take a break onto the bar section of the place, meanwhile Dick accompanied her gently bringing her along by her lower backside, attentive not to shift lower and careful in making it seem casual.</p><p>“I’ll admit it…” he mumbled once you were both sat down at the barstool “… I honestly thought that you would have lost all my money on the first round”.</p><p>“… I’ll have to teach you how to play poker” Laurel shot back, feeling at ease in talking with Dick, although she felt like she couldn’t just talk about anything more than what caressed the surface with him.</p><p>Unlike with Jason.</p><p>She could see the appeal that Jason thought that Dick owned.</p><p>But he should seriously reconsider his own qualities and stop comparing himself to his brother.</p><p>Which was an extremely hypocritical thing to say when she had passed her whole life chasing after Victoria.</p><p>But they were two hypocrites.</p><p>They had that in common.</p><p>No, that didn’t make her feel any better.</p><p>“… I’ll give you my work-out regime in exchange for a few poker lessons” he muttered “… were you… actually counting the cards?”.</p><p>Technically, yes.</p><p>But Laurel had never been good at that kind of things, although she knew the basis of the whole game and its mathematics strategies</p><p>In the end there was a reason if she had chosen to become a lit-major…</p><p>.. so, she also relied heavily onto things such as her own ability to read others and deal with the whole ‘poker face’ myth.</p><p>“A magician never reveals their tricks” she simply muttered to Dick with a smirk that tried to be seductive but seeing it onto the mirror that was posed on the wall in front of her made Laurel seem something in between an adorable lost seal and the wicked witch of the East.</p><p>“… even to pretty ladies, like me?”.</p><p>At that voice both Laurel and Dick turned around and found themselves in front of Madam Butterfly.</p><p>Not much was known about her, aside from the usual things that could be said for the rich people that appointed themselves as mob bosses when they were too bored with their own enterprises.</p><p>Adorably petite, Madam Butterfly was the pseudonym for Cassia Nirpen, a young lady who had ‘mysteriously’ inherited the family business and one day she had decided to take residence in Gotham, building the ‘Tale of Eros’ and pulling various strings to get it to be one of the most sinful of clubs all around Gotham.</p><p>Which was honestly… quite impressive.</p><p>She changed almost compulsively her appearance, never appearing with the same dress twice and that night she had settled for an elegant silk chemise, something that belonged more in the bedroom than outside of it but paired with what looked like expensive pearls and those diamond earrings it gave it an elegance that Laurel didn’t own even in her mother’s stolen clothes.</p><p>Which weren’t cheap either.</p><p>Platinum blonde hair fashioned in what tried to seem an ‘everyday look’ and gently falling down her back in a flapper’s bob that just added a ‘roaring’ vibe to the whole outfit, definitely defining her as the queen of the night.</p><p>Laurel honestly didn’t know what to say.</p><p>Part of her curiously looking at the elegant form of her purplish lips, highlighting the lightness of her skin and hair, but contrasting with the electric blue eyes, probably obtained through contacts.</p><p>“… you finally have decided to attend to us, mere mortals” bumped in Dick, also physically covering Laurel with his body almost to shield her from the electric gaze of the beautiful woman, who definitely did make her feel at unease of her whole appearance.</p><p>“How could I not when I heard that I had a guest, like you, Dick Grayson” and she offered to him her manicured and elegant hand, although the light reddish stain on the brilliant diamond on her ring finger didn’t pass unnoticed to Laurel.</p><p>Who was simply glad to have passed in the background of the conversation.</p><p>Although Dick kept their hands linked.</p><p>Dick and Cassia went on for a few minutes exchanging what looked like flirtatious compliments and it didn’t surprise Laurel when she invited them back in her own office, proposing something ‘stronger’ than the drinks at the bar.</p><p>‘… I have something new to put on the market, soon’ she explained almost conspiratorially as she leaned onto Dick ‘… I am sure that you’d love to try it, if you are already enjoying all that the ‘Tale of Eros’ has to offer you’.</p><p>‘Oh, I am’ Dick’s smirk was almost scary in the way it echoed some kind of luring darkness.</p><p>Jason always had his own darkness luring in those pretty eyes of his.</p><p>But Dick had some kind of deviousness to him that he kept confined and let resurface just when needed.</p><p>Laurel wondered what the other occasions when it was needed were.</p><p>“… and your beautiful partner can come with us” Cassia’s face was almost quirked in a smirk that seemed dangerous and didn’t seem to know how to accept a ‘no’ and Laurel simply smirked, not fully trusting her voice.</p><p>Technically that wasn’t meant to happen.</p><p>Being in closed quarters with that woman would have meant more danger.</p><p>But for now, they didn’t have too many proofs that would have led the GCDP to Cassia.</p><p>So, they both followed Madam Butterfly inside her elegant office, on the other side of the club, meant to be undisturbed, although the soundproof walls were already a precaution that would have been sufficient.</p><p> But Laurel could understand the need for secrecy of the woman.</p><p>You didn’t get that far in the crime scene without being also unknown to all your enemies.</p><p>Cassia smiled at them once they were inside.</p><p>Something seemed almost wrong in the twist of her mouth.</p><p>‘Isn’t this a lovely place?’ Cassia asked and although Dick kept his mouth blabbering open with her, Laurel kept her senses sharp, feeling like there was something deeply wrong in what was going to happen soon ‘… I did tell you I’d have something special for you both’.</p><p>And she opened a door that led to her true office.</p><p>Probably this one, in which they were staying, being destined for guests or as a waiting room.</p><p>And not only both Laurel and Dick were surprised by that choice, but also by the man seated in her chair.</p><p>Red Hood.</p><p>AKA Jason Todd.</p><p>Laurel’s roommate.</p><p>And crush.</p><p>Fuck.</p><hr/><p>Could Jason be angry with Laurel?</p><p>Not exactly.</p><p>Would that stop him from being angry with her?</p><p>No.</p><p>He wasn’t her boyfriend and this whole ‘fake boyfriend’ thing that had been happening between them both was just beneficial to them both.</p><p>And yet, the sole thought of Laurel being caressed and appreciated by someone that wasn’t him made him see red.</p><p>Although he shouldn’t.</p><p>Because he was a fucking coward who couldn’t just confess his feelings to Laurel.</p><p>He hid it all under the pretense of keeping her safe.</p><p>But if he had truly wanted Laurel safe, he wouldn’t have involved her in all of this, at the start.</p><p>He would have brought her a ticket of the nicest place that he could find and told her to keep the change.</p><p>The only true reason why he couldn’t bring himself to confess of loving her was because he was afraid of her rejecting him.</p><p>Or worse.</p><p>Of her not wanting him with the same intensity that he felt for her.</p><p>Jason was a theatre kid.</p><p>One with a pendant for literature, mostly Jane Austen and Shakespeare, so he knew he could be intense.</p><p>He sometimes didn’t doubt that Laurel could act the same way, being a literature major with a pedant for its most ancient developments and having as favorite authors Sophocles and Catullus.</p><p>But he was just scared.</p><p>Scared of not being enough for her.</p><p>Of being too much.</p><p>Of losing her.</p><p>He honestly wanted to spy onto Laurel’s date.</p><p>But that would have just meant to give in to the sole desire that he couldn’t satisfy.</p><p>And Laurel had been pissed enough with him and he didn’t want to worsen that.</p><p>And yet he was worried.</p><p>Worried that whoever Laurel would be on a date with wouldn’t be interesting enough for her.</p><p>Would make fun of her slight lisp.</p><p>And of those cute childish cheeks that reddened so easily.</p><p>Each time he went on a mission, it became more difficult for Jason to hold back the feelings he felt for Laurel.</p><p>He missed her terribly.</p><p>Although he wouldn’t have admitted it even under the worst of tortures.</p><p>When he had at first realized that he was feeling ‘that way’ towards Laurel, he had almost been looking forward to those missions, because they meant that he could clear his head and have his own relief from his mind and his feelings towards his roommate.</p><p>But now, he just wanted to come back to her as soon as he could.</p><p>And act like her boyfriend.</p><p>He had wanted to be the one to take her out wherever Laurel wanted to go, telling her to change in something more comfortable, because although she looked gorgeously wonderful in the elegant dress, he knew that’s she didn’t already like the way it fit her body.</p><p>And honestly, he tried not to be a jealous bastard, but he would have shot anybody  on sight if they had looked at the way her legs peaked underneath the fabric.</p><p>Fuck, he hoped that the fucker wouldn’t try to peak underneath the fabric because he would have killed him.</p><p>The sole way he had to distract from his homicidal instincts, was to act on them.</p><p>And not onto the lucky bastard who got to see Laurel in that that assemble.</p><p>He had honestly thought to take care of Madam Butterfly a bit later on, mostly because he had wanted to spend the night back home from the mission with Laurel, but he guessed that he could pay that woman a visit earlier than he thought.</p><p>Hadn’t he heard and known that she employed underage girls in her club and that she didn’t respect the ‘do not sell drugs to kids’ rule, Jason would have respected that woman.</p><p>But he guessed that he couldn’t have anymore children risk an overdose or hear from his sources that a few girls had been found beaten or worse, after they had been at the ‘Tale of Eros’, having to ‘satisfy’ the worst clients ever.</p><p>He was disgusted and sick of all those bastards.</p><p>But he knew that it would have taken a lot of time to make everything change.</p><p>And that’s why he didn’t believe like Bruce in the ‘magical power of forgiving’.</p><p>Those people needed a bullet in their head.</p><p>Nothing would have grown, if the weeds weren’t taken care of, properly.</p><p>In a permanent way.</p><p>Laurel had never criticized his method.</p><p>Although he knew that she didn’t like the thought of blood on her hands.</p><p>But she would be there for him when he came home.</p><p>Her hands faltering sometimes as she scrubbed the wound that had been dealt on Jason’s body.</p><p>But there wasn’t any fear in her eyes and neither pity of disgust, when he met his.</p><p>There was just this worry.</p><p>‘Be careful, idiot’ Laurel always told him before patrol.</p><p>And Jason only wished that he could answer with a kiss on her lips, for once.</p><p>The memory of the brief one they had shared in front of Barbara and Jim had just heightened that want.</p><p>That need.</p><p>He had remembered each night he was away from her the shape of her lips, their warmness and how swiftly the tension in them had disappeared once he had gently held her.</p><p>Fuck, fuck, fuck.</p><p>Back when ‘these feelings’ had at first started, he had thought that this would be a simple sexual attraction to Laurel.</p><p>She was a fucking goddess with pretty eyes and a body that he wished to explore, and he had known from the start that there was no shame in feeling that way.</p><p>It wasn’t as dangerous as admitting of being in love with her.</p><p>But when he had started imagining Laurel whenever he needed to breech the edge, Jason had started feeling uncomfortable.</p><p>Because it felt like a violation of her privacy.</p><p>But nothing else seemed to work.</p><p>And he had understood that he wasn’t simply physically attracted to Laurel.</p><p>He wanted to fucking protect her.</p><p>That’s why he was such a shithead with her sometimes.</p><p>That’s why he sometimes tried to pull her away from him.</p><p>And that’s why he was having a heart-attack as he saw her by his brother’s arm in Cassia’s private office.</p><p> Destiny certainly said: ‘no fucking joy for you, Jason Todd’.</p><p>If Dick was Laurel’s ‘mysterious date’, he would have killed the fucker for once and for all.</p><p>But he doubted that Laurel would have actually gone out with Dick, without telling him.</p><p>She knew perfectly about Jason’s whole fucked up family dynamics.</p><p>And if he knew one thing about Laurel was that she would have completely overthought the whole situation and eventually blurted out about it to Jason immediately.</p><p>So, there must have been something more about this.</p><p>‘… I have a special guest for you two to meet’ Cassia still thought that she had the upper hand and both Laurel’s and Dick’s shocked faces certainly helped to just heighten that sensation and Jason honestly didn’t know who looked more genuine ‘… you know how you have to play with the big boys and all…’.</p><p>Technically everybody assumed that the Red Hood was still a crime boss.</p><p>Which did help Jason a lot.</p><p>People hated him.</p><p>But hey that was nothing new.</p><p>So, convincing Cassia that he just wanted a part in her own hall of fame hadn’t been too difficult.</p><p>Even more when he had suggested his ability to introduce her in the true ‘crime life’ of Gotham, insert a few flirtatious comments and various compliments and he had managed to convince the woman pretty quickly not to check in his own utility belt and he was just waiting for the right moment she lowered her defenses to strike.</p><p>Except now it was more complex because Laurel was obviously involved.</p><p>Fucking shit.</p><p>He didn’t know whether he should have hired a babysitter…</p><p>… and now he understood why Bruce had aged so badly.</p><p>He was sure that Laurel and her reckless behavior had definitely caused quite a few grey hairs to him.</p><p>“… got you quite the surprise, didn’t I?” chuckled Madam Butterfly, her hands entangling with Dick’s and it didn’t go unnoticed to both Jason and Laurel, both internally panicking “… well I thought the more the better, isn’t that how it is said?”.</p><p>“Well, I certainly didn’t think that you meant this…” Dick got back onto his feet quite swiftly and he smirked at Cassia, but didn’t even spare Jason a glance, which he guessed might be difficult for him to do.</p><p>But they both had to cover their asses and undercover identities.</p><p>Now how the heck could he manage to get Laurel out of this.</p><p>“… then why don’t we switch partners for the night?” proposed Cassia, her whole focus onto Dick Grayson and honestly Jason couldn’t blame her.</p><p>Dick was the charming sibling.</p><p>And he was surprised that Laurel hadn’t fallen down the charm hole, yet.</p><p>“That seems like a good idea” muttered Jason’s modified voice and both Dick and Laurel whipped their heads towards him, the former with a questioning look hidden underneath the surprise one he shot him and Laurel just looking at him as if she couldn’t believe this could get more ridiculous.</p><p>And just wait till he told her off.</p><p>“Sweetheart…” oh Jason was going to make him pay for that “… is that alright with you?”.</p><p>It must have been some kind of code, because Dick looked attentively at Laurel, definitely trying to detect any kind of discomfort in being pushed together with the famed ‘Red Hood’, probably worried that she might be injured since Jason was technically a ‘bad guy’.</p><p>But considering the fact that Laurel had once witnessed him wax his pecs, he doubted that his roommate would ever think of him as anything truly dangerous.</p><p>Even more for the high-pitched scream that left his mouth.</p><p>“… alright with me, lover boy”.</p><p>And also, Laurel would have gotten it, once he put her to safety.</p><p>Dick sent her one last look, before he ducked with Cassia inside the office as Jason exited it and ‘his brother’ reached out to him with a badly concealed strength and pushed him against the wall underneath Cassia’s hazed eyes.</p><p>“… don’t hurt her” he muttered tightly in what must have looked to Cassia as some kind of power dynamics shifting between two possessive males, but truly it was Dick warning Jason that whatever he wanted to do, Laurel wasn’t to be injured.</p><p>‘Don’t worry big bro, Laurel could kick my ass if she wanted to’ he wanted to reply as Laurel tried to wield her face in an open smirk of pure seductiveness and not utter worry, mostly because she wasn’t sure how to handle the new guest.</p><p>“… I know how to treat a lady” he winked at Dick and pushed himself back, the door closing beneath him as Cassia dragged Dick inside and Laurel’s face immediately dropped “… well, it’s just you and me…”.</p><p>Laurel signaled swiftly to her necklace and her earrings and Jason’s sensors in his helmet immediately caught onto the fact that there were microphones in them.</p><p>He got something out of his utility belt, grateful that he had raided Tim’s little shop of ‘marvelous technical creations’ a few weeks ago and managed to find a few new nice ‘toys’ such as that nice device in his hands that stopped technology from properly working once activated.</p><p>He passed it onto Laurel, which switched it on quickly and once a light buzzing could be heard, around them, he understood that now it was just him and her, truly.</p><p>“So… how is your date going?” he muttered, not truly knowing how to start, even more because as much as he wanted to be sarcastic and throw a whole temper tantrum, he knew that Dick in the other room could distract Cassia and neutralize her just for so long.</p><p>“Marvelously”.</p><p>Oh, the little shit.</p><p>He loved that smirk.</p><p>“… please tell me this is a date and not something different” because knowing and remembering her connection with the police he could suddenly put the two things together and realize that Laurel was probably in an undercover mission with Dick.</p><p>Just his fucking Luck,</p><p>“I kind of… you shouldn’t be here…” she shot back as if that was an excuse to her presence there “… and I just want you to know that I am glad I can’t see your angry face underneath the helmet”.</p><p>“We’ll have a conversation at home about you being a dumbass…” he shot back, coming closer to her, till he knew that he was forcing her to back up, which Laurel didn’t take kindly, almost as if she had been challenged, puffing up her chest.</p><p>Which made her absolutely adorable.</p><p>“When are they supposed to come in?” he asked her, once gloved hand going underneath her chin to raise it lightly mostly to examine her to see if anything bad had happened to her, as he focused onto the small microphones set up in her earrings.</p><p>Quite a good work.</p><p>“… technically once we get shit about Cassia” she explained, her hand going to his arm, but not to push him away but more to grasp tightly the arm that was in front of her, almost to reassure herself “… the safe-word is champagne”.</p><p>Kinky.</p><p>“Call it in five minutes” he commented, as he dropped the hand holding her chin, turning around as the meaning of his words slowly settled in Laurel.</p><p>“… Jason, the police…” she tried to shoot back, although her voice was dangerously low to keep it from reaching Cassia and Dick “… they can handle her…”.</p><p>“No, they can’t” he replied, and he was halfway through putting his hand onto his gun holsters when the door of the waiting room opened fully, and it revealed a rather unbothered Cassia holding a gun on Dick Grayson’s head.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>“… oh, didn’t think that I would be so stupid not to know what was going on?” she muttered with a soft smirk as her finger gently positioned themselves on the trigger, making it sure that both Laurel and Jason knew that she wasn’t joking “… now… let’s settle a deal, pretty ones”.</p><p>Well, that night wasn’t definitely going as they had expected.</p><hr/><p>Well, she certainly hadn’t thought that she’d end up in so many troubles.</p><p>Who was she kidding?</p><p>She had a tendency to overthink and low self-esteem.</p><p>She knew this would end horribly.</p><p>But not this way.</p><p>It had been already traumatizing enough to discover that Dick Grayson would be her partner.</p><p>And Madam Butterfly was on Jason’s kill list.</p><p>But what was worst Cassia had definitely discovered something about the whole police plan and now had a gun planted against Dick’s head.</p><p>“… I am sure we can talk about it” replied lightly Dick, as if he hadn’t a pistol against his temples and Laurel had to remind herself that with his secret identity as Nightwing he had probably been in that situation a lot of time.</p><p>Which didn’t make Laurel feel in any way better.</p><p>“… oh yeah, of course” Cassia’s smile was adorable “… I want to fucking be left alone and I want you, dipshit, to fucking get the police away from my back”.</p><p>“Why don’t you fucking put the gun, down, little girl?” intervened Jason “… shooting a police officer is never a good look… and if you shoot me, believe me, I won’t fucking play the good guy role, anymore”.</p><p>Laurel could see the way that Jason’s whole body had tensed.</p><p>He had undervalued the situation.</p><p>As Laurel and Dick had.</p><p>Certainly, they couldn’t have thought that somebody would have sold them out.</p><p>Although they should have.</p><p>Laurel had witnessed more embezzlement procedures than she could count, at the police station.</p><p>She had tried reporting them to Jim, but she knew that not much would be actually done, mostly because Jim couldn’t do much since many of the physical proofs were either burned down or hidden.</p><p>Laurel had even been threatened at work.</p><p>She had once come back with a broken finger.</p><p>She had been thankful that it had healed quickly, and Jason was on a mission.</p><p>Because anybody who dared to touch her in a way that provoked harm to her body, would have been dead by his hands.</p><p>She knew she shouldn’t have glorified Jason’s violent trait.</p><p>But she couldn’t help but feel like it was just an added bonus to his whole personality.</p><p>“Oh, Red Hood, you aren’t the type to follow rules… are you?” something twinkled dangerously in Cassia’s eyes “… but you wouldn’t let a civilian be injured on your watch, even more one whose name is well-known in this city”.</p><p>Dick’s eyes moved towards Laurel, trying to find out if she was okay.</p><p>Something behind those smart eyes was definitely coming up with a plan.</p><p>Or so she hoped.</p><p>Because her mind was painfully empty.</p><p>“… what the fuck do you want, Cassia?” Jason was obviously trying to get Cassia to distract herself from the thumb onto the trigger, probably to create a chance for Dick to exit this peacefully.</p><p>“I fucking want for you all to acknowledge my presence in the fucking Olympus of businessmen” Gosh, they were always right about the villain monologue and Madam Butterfly didn’t certainly disappoint.</p><p>Although her grip onto the trigger certainly didn’t lower itself.</p><p>“… do you even have a fucking clue about how I feel being fucking overlooked as if I am still nothing more than a whore, although I fucking have this city in my first…!”.</p><p>Well, Laurel would have actually appreciated that female rage, hadn’t she just threatened Dick.</p><p>“… completely understandable” muttered Jason, not thinking even for a moment about lowering his gun “… hadn’t you been a fucking piece of shit to children and underage girls and because of that, believe me, you won’t come out alive of here”.</p><p>“We’ll see about that” Cassia’s smile now had left any pretense of her tragic backstory, as the gun dug deeper in Dick’s brain, as if it was a warning before the real event even took place and she looked at Laurel for the first time during that night “… open me a line with the police, sweetheart”.</p><p>Laurel saw immediately the annoyance in Jason’s reflection on the expensive mirror in front of them at the nickname.</p><p>But her eyes focused on the gun.</p><p>And about the fact that it wasn’t a regular model.</p><p>Cassia must have invested in some new creations on the weapon market.</p><p>And Laurel had an idea.</p><p>“… ok, I just…” she reached out onto the small object that Jason had given her to cut off the connection with the police station and she definitely believed that they were panicking so she better just moves with the plan “… I kind of… need you to hold this”.</p><p>Cassia raised an eyebrow as if she thought that she’d be stupid enough to come closer.</p><p>And Laurel tried to play wholeheartedly the ‘dumb cop’ act.</p><p>She was inspired mostly by Giblison.</p><p>“… oh no, I swear… this isn’t anything… you see… I kind of… we are a shitty police office, we don’t even have the money for things that might pass unnoticed, you know…”.</p><p>“I know” Cassia’s voice showed the least interest for any problematics that might leave Laurel’s mouth, meanwhile Jason looked at her attentively and she didn’t know whether he was disapproving what she was doing or… simply worried “… drop it onto the ground and Hodd kick it towards me”.</p><p>Once they followed the instructions, she made Dick pick it up, this way her hand wouldn’t leave the gun carefully keeping it on in one hand, meanwhile she picked up the object, confused and Laurel informed her, always in that awkward tone, that she had to push the button on her left.</p><p>And then the electrical gun she had been holding to Dick’s head disactivated itself.</p><p>Wasn’t it nice to know that villains were basically using better technology?</p><p>Cassia immediately tried to pull the trigger, but it didn’t work.</p><p>And Jason immediately understood.</p><p>He pushed Laurel behind him and shot a bullet at Cassia’s shoulder, effectively hitting her and getting her to back off.</p><p>Dick immediately kicked off the gun that left her hand away and pushed himself on his own feet.</p><p>It did look synchronized, as two people that had been taught by the same teacher.</p><p>She shouldn’t have been that surprised.</p><p>But it was a sight to see.</p><p>And the sound in her microphones appeared again.</p><p>“… fucking answer, Laurel!” it was definitely commissioner Jim Gordon.</p><p>“I am here!” she muttered loudly.</p><p>“We don’t know what the fuck went on, between your audio disappearing and Dick’s cameras being all strangely fuzzy and such… are you alright?”.</p><p>‘Well Dick almost got shot in the head and my roommate will probably lock me out because of being a reckless idiot…’.</p><p>“… we are kind of fine”.</p><p>“Is it Jim?” asked Dick cheerily, as if he wasn’t restraining with his own body Cassia, screaming for the wound on her shoulder “… tell him that we are looking for the proofs”.</p><p>“… we are looking for the proofs, just give us a minute” she muttered, moving onto the office, meanwhile Jason followed her, almost as if he was her shadow, swiftly unlocking the locks of the desk where they found definitely a lot of interesting things “… I’ll photograph them and send them to you, ok?”.</p><p>“Is that the… the Red Hood?” muttered Jim, his tone definitely as surprised as her own and it took everything in her not to answer to him sarcastically.</p><p>“He decided to give us a hand” she commented as she swiftly ruffled through the various papers that showed the various illegal activities that Cassia had made sure to take care of since she had at first come to Gotham, which was quite impressive.</p><p>“.. alright… I do think that we can come inside and do our job” muttered Jim Gordon, before an explosion went off and the whole ground beneath their feet shook, signaling that something had gone even more horrendously wrong.</p><p>Cassia laughed maniacally and Jason managed to get on his feet quickly after he had made sure that Laurel was safe and sound, pointing his gun again onto Cassia.</p><p>“What the fuck was that?”.</p><p>“Security measures” she replied with a grin “… this all place is fucking going down with me”.</p><p>“That was an explosion” both Jason and Laurel turned to Dick with their best ‘stating the obvious, idiot’ expression “… fuck fuck fuck, there are civilians out there, we need to take care of them”.</p><p>“Oh, do it quickly… there are going to be two other planned explosions, in fifteen minutes, one to the main room and another…” Cassia looked at the ground with the gaze of somebody who had nothing to lose “… here, right underneath the floor”.</p><p>Laurel felt her head completely empty.</p><p>She would have fucking died, tonight.</p><p>Jason gripped tightly her arm, bringing her back to reality but before she could say anything in the utter pressure of the moment such as ‘fuck fuck fuck’ or ‘I fucking love you’ and he pushed her towards Dick, keeping Cassia under control through his gun pointed at her back.</p><p>“… get her out” he told Dick, and his voice didn’t ask for any reply from his brother, who did nod and tried to grab onto Laurel’s arm, who suddenly realized what was actually happening.</p><p>“No, I fucking won’t leave you here!” she shouted, as Dick tried to drag her further away, to no avail since Laurel had put down the heel of her feet, creating an intense resistance that didn’t work in favor of her partner for the night “… I am sure that we can come up with something”.</p><p>“Oh, and the best part is that… I have a sensor on my body… if I die, this office goes immediately… kaboom… isn’t it nice?”.</p><p>But Jason simply shot Dick another look.</p><p>“Get her the fuck out, no matter what”.</p><p>And before Laurel could protest further, she was pushed onto Dick’s shoulder and there wasn’t any way that she could protest, although she tried to kick the air and to order to him to put her down, as they both exited the room, finding out that whatever explosion had happened it had started from the outside.</p><p>Effectively making the doors crumble down, blocking their sole escape.</p><p>Effectively trapping them inside.</p><p>And that’s when Dick put her down.</p><p>All the guests were quite panicky, and Laurel was sure that their time had rounded up to something less than ten minutes.</p><p>“Laurel” reclaimed her attention Dick as he put her down but kept her from launching back in the office “… I need you to be lucid for this, ok?”.</p><p>‘Fuck no, I can’t. The love of my life was left behind and he doesn’t even know how much he means to me’.</p><p>“…ok” because if she didn’t get out, there was a good chance that Jason wouldn’t have ever known about it.</p><p>She had to pray and hope that they would have gotten out, safely.</p><p>Somehow.</p><p>“… I need your help to check out the blueprint of the building” and he exited his phone showing her the blueprint of the palace where they were, as they both assured themselves that the place where the first explosion had happened was the underground parking lot, they had first come in.</p><p>And that there might be a way out.</p><p>A small incoherency appeared on the East corner of the place and both of them found out pretty quickly that an old emergency door had been installed her, hidden beneath a table and colored of the bright golden of the entire place.</p><p>They moved quickly the table and it didn’t take long for them both to catch onto the attention of the panicked guests, who pushed themselves through the emergency door, although both Dick and Laurel suggested to thread slowly.</p><p>Dick then moved to call Jason, by now he was honestly not even hiding their link and Laurel was sure that he somehow knew of her relationship with his brother, although he didn’t dare to say anything, but simply suggested that Laurel just went ahead, outside.</p><p>“I am not fucking moving till Jason comes back” she had replied stubbornly, and Dick wasn’t honestly ready to fight a battle that he couldn’t win and simply uttered about the fact that she’d need to meet Judith.</p><p>If he was surprised that Laurel knew Jason’s true identity, he didn’t show it, as he rushed back to the private office and the connection started functioning again in Laurel’s earrings.</p><p>She heard clearly Jim asking her ‘what the fuck was going on’.</p><p>“… we heard a fucking explosion, please don’t tell me that you are still inside the building”</p><p>“Afraid to disappoint, boss” she muttered, as Jim’s breath hitched.</p><p>“Then what are you waiting for, fucking hell, Laurel!”.</p><p>‘My roommate, who you know as Red Hood, and his brother to get out… also technically Jason is also my fake boyfriend, although I do wish that he’d be something more… you know all that stuff…’.</p><p>Before she could reply, she saw Dick coming at full velocity onto her and before she could register what was going on he pushed her through the door and didn’t leave her till they were at a good distance away from the building.</p><p>Right when it exploded.</p><p>Jason nowhere in sight.</p><p>No, this… couldn’t happen.</p><p>Jason had died because of an explosion.</p><p>It couldn’t fucking happen again.</p><p>No, he couldn’t…</p><p>Dick got up, since they had been both knocked down from the explosions which made her ears buzz loudly as she heard Jim shouting in them, hoping that she’d answer, but she could just look at the palace on fire, and fucking lose herself.</p><p>This couldn’t be happening.</p><p>It was simply a bad dream.</p><p>She felt Dick behind her, gently holding her and trying to make her face away, but she simply pushed against him and he was lucky enough to grab onto her one more time before she drifted in the blazing fire.</p><p>“Laurel! Laurel!” he called out her name as she dug her nails in his expensive jacket “… he is fucking alive, I swear to God that he isn’t…”.</p><p>And she turned to him.</p><p>She wanted to slap him, because nobody would have survived such an explosion.</p><p>And Dick caught onto what she meant with her passive gaze, her whole body now being onto a more defensive stance.</p><p>And before she knew it, she felt two arms gently take her away from Dick, and as she turned she was faced with the one and only Red Hood, unmasked partially by his broken helmet and definitely a bit burned.</p><p>But alive and breathing.</p><p>She didn’t care that Dick saw them in such an intimate position, as she went to hug his waist tightly, her head pushing itself on his shallow beating heart, one of the benefits of having been bathed in the Lazarus’ Pit.</p><p>But it was there.</p><p>He was still there with her.</p><p>“You fucking scared me” she knew that she was crying and that was why she held onto him more strongly.</p><p>“Now you know how I fucking feel everytime you put your pretty ass in danger, sweetheart” he shot back, his whole tone wanting to be a reprimand, but it was so soft that she just wanted to be back home and be able to tease him properly.</p><p>And they were pointedly reminded of the third party staring at them, as Dick coughed lightly, something similar to a knowing smirk appearing on his lips, as his eyes twinkled lightly at the soft gesture between her and Jason.</p><p>Shit, they were doomed.</p><p>“… not that I want to… interrupt little wing over here, but…” he picked up a discarded earring from where Laurel could hear a very very distressed Jim screaming her name “… do let him know that you are alive, please, or he’ll be on my ass for the next month”.</p><p>She took the earring from Dick with an embarrassed smirk, Jason’s hands remaining onto her shoulders for which she was thankful since she wanted to still feel him so alive against her skin.</p><p>She made sure to confirm to Jim Gordon that she hadn’t been injured and that she was pretty sure that Cassia was dead.</p><p>He told her that he ‘was fucking glad to discover that but never to do that again’ and that thanks to the whole documentation she and Dick had managed to find, the clients that had been there that night were being arrested and the following days they’d work on getting a few more.</p><p>Truly a happy ending?</p><p>Which didn’t make sense, but honestly Laurel didn’t feel like asking too many questions.</p><p>She just needed to feel Jason.</p><p>And when they had to detach to come back alongside Dick to give her statement and maybe get checked since she was pretty sure that if the first explosion hadn’t done anything more than shift her balance, this new one certainly had taken a toll on her body, she honestly felt like a child with abandonment issues.</p><p>‘Will you be waiting for me at home?’ she asked Jason, her hand gently tracing the darkish side of Jason’s face, probably bruised by the impact and Laurel was careful in touching it ‘… I don’t know how much it’ll take me…’.</p><p>She was honestly worried that Jason might be angry with her.</p><p>Which he kind of had every reason to.</p><p>But also, she was suddenly self-conscious about how touchy she had been with him since knowing that he hadn’t been in the explosion.</p><p>That he had survived it.</p><p>Even more since it had all happened in front of Dick.</p><p>And from the look of pure brotherly amusement, she had known that Jason would be teased mercilessly for this.</p><p>‘… yeah’ he mumbled, gently leaning down to kiss her forehead ‘… I need to check a few things and if you end up having to go to the hospital do let me know, alright, sweetheart?’.</p><p>‘I honestly hope I won’t… I kind of exited the hospital just a month ago’ she tried to lighten the mood, but Jason simply quirked up an eyebrow at her, tiredly.</p><p>‘That’s because you are a reckless, idiot, babe’ he uttered, but he gripped tightly her hand one last time before letting it go ‘… Dick, I trust you to bring her home safely’.</p><p>Dick simply nodded with a solemnity that made Laurel blush, and he then gently took her from Jason’s arms, keeping a hand onto her back and another on her arm to allow her to lean onto him if needed.</p><p>Moving back was kind of silently awkward.</p><p>Jim and a few ambulances were already there, and she swore that she had never bene hugged that tighter as when the old commissioner brought her in a bone-crushing hug, silently crying at seeing her safe and sound as Pearl dried some of her own tears, already ready to scream at her for being a ‘reckless piece of shit’.</p><p>Laurel understood why she and Jason went along so well.</p><p>Both she and Dick were dismissed pretty quickly, mostly after a medical check-up, their statement being pushed onto the following morning in favor of leaving the two individuals free to handle the shock of the explosion in bed.</p><p>Dick, who was pretty lucid, offered to accompany Laurel back home.</p><p>And she was ready for honestly the tensest moment of the night.</p><p>Couldn’t she just go back to the time when a pretty lady had almost gotten them to shit their pants?</p><p>“… we aren’t together” she muttered, once the door of Dick’s service car closed behind her, the man having been careful to tuck her in, adjusting the seat appropriately for her “… I mean… we are just roommates”.</p><p>Dick simply hummed and she understood why Jason felt like Dick was kind of noisiest of them all.</p><p>Had Bruce Waune trained his children on how to make bad guys feel under pressure?</p><p>Because being calmly focused on the road ahead, Dick didn’t say anything.</p><p>“… I am just happy he has someone to come home every night” was Dick’s light answer, as if it was the most natural thing of the world, his eyes focused on the road, although Laurel felt them on her the whole time “… I’ll keep my nose out of this, because Jason would break it if he knew that I questioned and honestly… it is too pretty to be broken”.</p><p>Laurel let out a shaky laugh, almost hysterical.</p><p>“… but… he does care for you and you care for him and that’s all I need to know” he muttered, as his car came to stop onto Laurel’s apartment and he made sure to accompany her in a protective but not overbearing way, making sure that she was inside and locking all the locks “… I’ll ask Jason your number for those poker lessons”.</p><p>She simply smirked.</p><p>Jason would have definitely broken his nose, if he had known that he had asked for her number.</p><p>Once inside, she followed her nightly routine mechanically, suddenly feeling too tight in the dress she had worn and discarding it at the entrance, making a mental note to pick it up the following morning as she moved through the apartment slowly in her panties and strapless bra, eventually ditching also that annoying garment.</p><p>Laurel immediately went through the secret stash of Jason’s clothes that she kept underneath her bed, in a small straw chest, pulling out the first garment she could find, which resulted in an old sweater that reached past her midthigh and further and although it was a bit too warm for that night, she kept it on as she went to wash off her make up, comforted by Jason’s natural smell and its warmth lingering on the fabric.</p><p>She brushed her hair swiftly and got her contacts out, blindly reaching for her glasses in the bathroom cardboards.</p><p>She wanted to go to bed.</p><p>But there was some childish part of her that wanted to wake up for Jason.</p><p>Who didn’t disappoint her and neither kept her waiting for too long, appearing from the kitchen ten minutes later after she had settled on the sofa with her phone as she scrolled through her Instagram feed, truly unable to focus on anything.</p><p>But the gesture brought her comfort.</p><p>As it did being completely smothered by a Jason Todd that smelled like dust and smoke.</p><p>Tonight, had been so close.</p><p>Too close</p><p>And it had been scary.</p><p>But neither of them said anything about it as they hugged each other tightly.</p><p>“I am sorry” she muttered in his shoulder.</p><p>Sorry because Dick would have teased him from now on.</p><p>Sorry for having put herself in danger.</p><p>Sorry for having made him almost die, after a fight.</p><p>Without telling him what she needed to.</p><p>“… not your fault” he muttered softly, pushing Laurel’s face back “… but no undercover mission, from now on”.</p><p>“I saved your ass” she retorted as Jason lightly softened underneath her “… maybe I should be Red Hood”.</p><p>“’Rel you would be the type of person to shot somebody in the head when you were aiming for their legs” he replied a semblance of smirk appearing in the slope of her neck, where his lips were carelessly caressing the slight plumpness of her skin.</p><p>“… listen… it isn’t my fault that I am astigmatic”.</p><p>“Yeah, but it is your fault that you are a reckless idiot”.</p><p>“… but you like me even if I am your reckless idiot?” as soon as the words left Laurel’s mouth she almost regretted them, aware of how they would have sounded and hoping that Jason would blame them onto Laurel’s need to be likeable with others.</p><p>She wouldn’t know for now, since his eyes were closed on her shoulder.</p><p>But she heard his answer clearly.</p><p>“I do like you, very much, Laurel Cellini” he muttered, his voice so tired that it broke something in her, and she knew that that confession was taking a lot of energy from her “… but don’t give me a heart-attack, I need my favorite civilian to make me muffins each morning”.</p><p>Although he had used humor to cover it, his confession was there.</p><p>But they were both quite under shock and Laurel knew that she shouldn’t have pushed it further.</p><p>“… how did you get out of…” she had honestly no clue, because he had basically appeared behind her, meanwhile she panicked badly thinking of having lost him.</p><p>“… I might have… waited for you and Dick to get everyone out and then I knocked out Cassia and brought her out through the vents” well, sometimes she forgot that Jason hadn’t simply the strength of a lion but also its feline grace “… Cassia woke up and tried to shoot me in the vents, and we got caught in a crossfire, she aimed at the helmet and…”.</p><p>He had shot back.</p><p>“… I run as fast as I could, and I grappled onto the ground right as the explosion took place”.</p><p>Straight out of an action movie.</p><p>That got a happy ending somehow.</p><p>“… that’s very cool”.</p><p>“Are you sure that you are cleared to sleep?” muttered Jason, lightly pushing himself back his eyes not meeting hers and Gosh it took anything in Laurel not to push an hand beneath his chin and tip it up to look at him in the eyes.</p><p>To make him look at her in the eyes.</p><p>And to fucking kiss the shit out of him.</p><p>But one step at the time.</p><p>“… yeah yeah, no concussion, but I’ll need to get checked up again in a few days and I am cleared for the whole week”.</p><p>“Good, you are taking a vacation” his smile was devious and honestly Laure just wanted to lose herself into it.</p><p>“… how? And where? You seem the delusional one here!”.</p><p>“You wound me, sweetheart!” he shot back, but his hands entwined with hers “… just know that I am stealing you away from Gotham and making sure that Dick won’t reach neither of us for the next whole week” he explained and brought Laurel again closer, before effectively pushing her up into his arms.</p><p>“… sounds good?”.</p><p>“Sounds amazing, Jason”.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Duke, Stephanie, Tim, Damian, Cass & Judith</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>And this time, the family is finally meeting Jason’s secretive (girlfriend) roommate.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jason hadn’t even able to reach the airport before his phone had started ringing and he had been forced to drive himself and Laurel back to his apartment to get his Red Hood suit and join Bruce in whatever the fuck he had put himself in.</p><p>Laurel had been evidently bummed by this last-minute change of plan, after she had been preparing for a whole week for that vacation.</p><p>But her smile had been hopeful as he apologized for having ruined their vacation, obviously understanding that it hadn’t been his fault.</p><p>It was Bruce’s, as always.</p><p>He had had a perfect plan.</p><p>Steal Laurel away for the weekend onto a private island that he had found during one of his ‘less-than legal’ jobs, where he’d be able to avoid thinking about Laurel putting herself in danger, willingly, since the island was quite small and extremely private, so she couldn’t just wander off to save people, as she always did.</p><p>Giving Jason an heartattack.</p><p>A good reason why that whole plan had just been fucking fantastic.</p><p>He just wanted a bit of time where he could be simply Jason.</p><p>And spend his time with Laurel.</p><p>To be able to finally tell her that he had feelings for her.</p><p>The close call at the ‘Tale of Eros’ had been enough to open his eyes.</p><p>And for the rest, he couldn’t tolerate anymore, Dick’s teasing.</p><p>The island would be a neutral ground, which meant that if this went well, as he predicted it would, it could be simply left behind and forgotten.</p><p>Unlike their apartments, where there would be a mix of happy and less happy memories for Jason if Laurel rejected him.</p><p>And considering that option… he was almost thankful to Bruce for ruining his vacation.</p><p>But still…</p><p>He had pictured it all, already in his mind, meanwhile he slept by an exhausted Laurel.</p><p>Her soft smile, highlighted by the golden rays of the warm sunset, turned towards him as they watched the peaceful and marvelous sight of the ocean as the sun set, creating the perfect atmosphere for a romantic confession.</p><p>Did this show his inner theatre kid?</p><p>Completely.</p><p>Was he going to renounce to it, because of that or Bruce?</p><p>Not in the slightest.</p><p>‘We can try next week’ he had proposed, before leaving, just missing his helmet as the phone in the back of his pocket started vibrating at full force and Jason could only guess it was Bruce who was calling him ‘… I swear I’ll switch off the phone, and…’.</p><p>‘I do think that Gotham does need Red Hood and I can’t be selfish and just hoard you in here’ Laurel had replied softly.</p><p>In that moment the height difference being heightened by the fact that Laurel had to stretch up her neck to look at him in the eyes, as she brushed away a loose strand of his hair that had fallen onto his face.</p><p>Jason had quickly grabbed the hand, holding it gently with the usual attention that he always dedicated to Laurel.</p><p>She wasn’t frail, but certainly delicate, in the best way such a term could describe a person.</p><p>In the way that meant that she cared for people, a lot.</p><p>Maybe a bit too much.</p><p>‘… you’d be the first one to think that’.</p><p>An adorable blush had colored her cheeks, and Jason had wanted to gently lean forward and kiss her, worsening that red on her cheeks.</p><p>Even just for the fact that Laurel honestly looked amazing in red.</p><p>‘Just… just be careful’ it was worded as a question, but it sounded like an order.</p><p>‘Always’ he had nodded, before Laurel gently retracted and at that Jason had felt awfully cold, but another call had started in the back of his pocket and he guessed that he couldn’t procrastinate anymore his meeting with Bruce, if he didn’t want the ‘big boob’ to appear in his apartment, in a few minutes.</p><p>‘For somebody who said he was happy I had a girlfriend, he sure is a fucking cockblock’ he thought as he adjusted the helmet, activating the most important commands, mostly to try them out and to check they weren’t damaged.</p><p>He hadn’t been able to call Roy to get a new one made, since the latest had broken so he had to work with an older version that had gone through two explosions and an alien invasion.</p><p>‘Lock everything, ok?’ he made Laurel promise ‘… don’t wait for me, also, I’ll probably spend the night at the Manor’.</p><p>Was that a disappointed look?</p><p>Laurel hid it immediately if it was proceeding to smirk up at him, meanwhile she pushed her arms around her body, obviously trying to protect herself in some way, as if she had just revealed something that now she wanted to keep hidden.</p><p>And this is what got Jason worried about a possible rejection.</p><p>Or of him suddenly chickening out.</p><p>Because Laurel would have been better off him.</p><p>And yet, he just wanted to be fucking selfish for a change.</p><p>‘… so, see you in the morning’ she replied softly ‘… do text me before going to sleep’.</p><p>‘Oh, I’ll even wish you “goodnight”, ‘Rel’ he made fun of her, already missing their daily banter, to which Laurel replied with her raised middle finger and a small laugh on her lips.</p><p>And fuck, Jason wanted to kiss her.</p><p>Fuck Bruce.</p><p>‘Go save the world, my hero’ she breathed in his face, coming a bit closer to him than it was needed and smirking with a softness that just made Jason want to gently pinch her lovely cheeks.</p><p>He had replied that he wasn’t ‘technically a hero’, before leaving, since this entire situation with Laurel’s pretty face and her cute mouth was starting to be unbearable and he knew that if he stayed with more minute he’d be swallowed inside those adorable muddy green eyes.</p><p>And honestly, considering what he had been doing that night, he should have just stayed inside.</p><p>What happened was that there had been a riot in Arkham, which had resulted into a lot of bad guys escaping the whole mental asylum.</p><p>And as much as Bruce probably had wanted to solve all of this alone, the old age, the mental stress and a good dose of Alfred’s sass about ‘not being the spring chicken he used to be’ had convinced the big guy to ask for his ‘associates’ help, currently sending them to various locations to get the whole situation back in check.</p><p>Anyways, what Jason had been doing was mostly a babysitter job.</p><p>Paired with the demon spawn and Duke (who he actually liked) he had been catching a lot of B-series villain, mostly because Bruce, always the self-sacrificing idiot with an ego too big to enter even the doors of the Manor, had taken the biggest villains, aided by Oracle and Cassandra.</p><p>As he kept on shooting at the kneecap of idiotic bad guys, he continued on think that he should have been on a tropical island.</p><p>With Laurel.</p><p>In a bikini.</p><p>He had been able to text her meanwhile they patrolled for the escaped convicts, and he had discovered that she was actually ‘too excited’ to fall asleep and was currently having a rewatch of the best F1 race of 2019.</p><p>Which was a way of saying that although he had told her not to, she was probably waiting for him.</p><p>He honestly wished that he could be on the sofa beside her.</p><p>Although he still didn’t understand anything about F1.</p><p>He had once pointed out to a red car, meanwhile she was watching a race, and he had muttered:</p><p>‘Hey, look it’s me’.</p><p>To which Laurel had replied:</p><p>‘That explains a lot, considering they are fucking idiots’.</p><p>That woman could be scarier than Bruce when she was enjoying a good car race.</p><p>And then shit had gone down.</p><p>Not with Laurel…</p><p>… with demon spawn and Duke.</p><p>They were after Mr. Freeze.</p><p>Damian had started the entire bullshit ‘I am the blood son, yada yada yada’ and meanwhile Jason was halfway through shooting the bad guy and Duke was trying to stop him, Mr. Freeze had managed to free himself and shot an ice crystal right through the brat’s shoulder.</p><p>Then Jason’s bullet had hit his legs.</p><p>‘He’ll be fine’ he told Duke once the teenager shot him an incredulous look.</p><p>In a few weeks.</p><p>Both him and Duke had then immediately moved to the brat’s side and realized that the situation was actually quite worrying, since although the hit hadn’t been mortal, the ice was and if they crystal was removed without having stitches or anything to stop the hemorrhage, Damian would have bled out.</p><p>And the ice crystal, at contact with his skin, started quickly melting.</p><p>Once had fully melted, it would have been extremely dangerous, if they didn’t operate quickly.</p><p>They were both far from the Manor and any Batman’s hideout.</p><p>… but they weren’t too far away from your apartment.</p><p>Where Jason had a few tricky things that would have helped Damian not bleeding out on his nice leather jacket.</p><p>He had looked at the agonizing Damian in Duke’s arms, the other vigilante looking at him for direction to which he had just shaken lightly his head and told him to follow him and turn off the location chip they both had in their suits,</p><p>Although the younger boy did look skeptic, he did as Jason said and then trailed off with him till they managed to reach Laurel’s apartment.</p><p>Bruce probably knew all the shit about her since after he had seen her at the hospital, but Jason didn’t want to know that he practically, by now, lived there.</p><p>And slept with her.</p><p>When they reached it, in a few minutes of pure parkour on Gotham’s roofs, he could see her shape through the windows, lightly luminated by the screen of the iPad where she was probably watching either stupid videos or some series, if she wasn’t still stuck on her F1 rewatch.</p><p>As he had told her, Laurel had locked both windows and doors and hadn’t he been a bit panicked about Damian’s health, who had passed out in Duke’s arms, he would have easily picked the locks, but he couldn’t exactly bring his body to reach in his utility belt and get out the few utensils he needed for that</p><p>And he guessed it would have startled Laurel more than simply breaking in her window.</p><p>Considering that she was kind of used to it.</p><p>‘Wait… we aren’t… we aren’t going to barge in some civilian’s home?’ asked with a whispered scream a rather worried Duke.</p><p>Technically he was the most loyal to Bruce, according to everyone, but Jason had heard that he could be quite the rebel, so the red vigilante just shot him a look that said ‘trust me, it’ll be cool’, before pushing himself against the glass of the windows effectively breaking it and startling awake Laurel.</p><p>“Fucking fuck!” she turned out immediately, her hand clutching the iPad as a weapon, meanwhile Duke stayed outside of the window, probably wondering whether Jason had gone completely crazy and not wanting to be involved in any of his dangerous plans “… again? Seriously, Jason?!”.</p><p>Laurel probably hadn’t noticed Duke, since she used his real name and not Red Hood.</p><p>But what was funnier was Duke’s confused face.</p><p>‘The girl… did… know… Jason…?’ he managed to blubber out.</p><p>Also, had this already happened?</p><p>“It was kind of an emergency, sweetheart” reassured her Jason, once he saw her shoulders slump down comfortably as Laurel recognized him, and he gestured to Duke to come forward with Damian “… can you get me one of my medical kits, quickly?”.</p><p>Laurel stood still.</p><p>She had now noticed Duke, and not only she had been startled by having seen another vigilante, in his amazing suit, but also because he had a child dressed in green, red and yellow in his arms, passed out by the pain and stress.</p><p>Another reason why they needed this to be quick.</p><p>“ ‘Rel?” he tried to snap her out of the trance and she did, nodding and scurrying for the room where he kept a few medical kits with advanced medicine tools and various medications that could be helpful to deal, such as antidotes and painkillers.</p><p>The latest were all intact due to Jason’s experience with drugs through his mother.</p><p>“… did we… did we just… is that your girlfriend?” asked Duke, shock being the sole thing that probably stopped him from having a proper laugh about this whole situation as Jason gestured to him to lower Damian on the small table in the middle of the dining room “… you have a girlfriend?”.</p><p>“Roommate” Jason replied, right when Laurel came back, moving to examine the child as she passed him the medical kit, something in his entire behavior asking if she could be useful in anyway “… Laurel, could you also get me some wet towels? Thank you, sweetheart”.</p><p>It didn’t pass unnoticed to Jason the ‘not your girlfriend, huh?’ look that Duke sent his way at that, but once the medical kit was opened, Jason rushed to help him with it.</p><p>Meanwhile the older vigilante searched for what he needed, Duke put pressure on the open wound, since the ice crystal had basically melted away.</p><p>Jason grabbed an adhesive patch, one of the latest inventions of wartime medicine, which allowed to seal back together skin for a certain time period and retarding the hemorrhage.</p><p>It wasn’t a cure, but it would have bought them some time.</p><p>Damian moaned in his sleep but didn’t show any sign of waking up and Jason hoped that it didn’t mean that they were too late, checking quickly his breath once the patch had been appropriately adjusted on his skin and Duke moved to rustle through the medical kit for a small heart-monitor.</p><p>Damian’s breath thankfully steadied itself, and when Laurel came back with the wet towels, they gently cleaned the blood around the wound to avoid infections, since it was the last thing they needed happening to the little shit.</p><p>He honestly despised Damian, but the little brat was too young to join the ‘Dead Robins’ club’.</p><p>Once the heartbeat monitor showed that the boy was steady, the three collectively joined in a huge huff of relief.</p><p>“… do ask to Spoiler if she can come here” Jason ordered Duke, who shot a side look at Laurel collecting the bloodied towels, as if to ask ‘maybe you should ask her before I call Spoiler’ “… light of my life and treasure of my heart… my sweet Laurel… can we get somebody in your beautiful house for the demon spawn?”.</p><p>And for somebody who had just witnessed two vigilantes invading her home with a wounded Robin on their shoulders, Laurel managed to shoot him a rather annoyed and sarcastic look, as if to say ‘do I even have an option’.</p><p>“… ok” and then she shot a quick look to Duke, softening her features “… oh by the way, I am Laurel”.</p><p>Duke looked at the hand that stood between them, obviously not wanting to appear impolite to the lady but also not knowing how to handle the entire thing since technically he was supposed to hide his secret identity.</p><p>“I am…” he seemed to think for a few minutes, shooting one more look at Jason, who simply relaxed his shoulder and sent him a look as if to say ‘honestly, I don’t care’ “… Signal”.</p><p>“Cool vigilante name” muttered Laurel, with the light and soft tone that she used, easing lightly the obvious sarcasm to spare Duke from embarrassment, although he did put a hand behind his neck, flustered in the face “… by the way… how the hell did this all happen?”.</p><p>Jason was more than happy to explain to her that ‘the demon spawn’ had basically begged Mr. Freeze to shoot him, just for Duke to intervene and explain ‘Jason’s small own happy little incident’ with the trigger of his gun, just to get a simple raised eyebrow from Laurel.</p><p>She had heard worse.</p><p>As Jason was halfway through ‘defending his own honor’, when both his and Duke’s helmet started ringing with an incoming call.</p><p>From Bruce, nonetheless.</p><p>“Red Hood, I think that you should take it” replied lightly Duke, with a teasing look that basically said, ‘it’s payback bitch’ and the small smirk on Laurel’s face said that if she had to pick a side, she’d take the one of the vigilante dressed in yellow, over his.</p><p>‘Traitor’ he mouthed at her, but did take Bruce’s call, moving to their shared bedroom, meanwhile he heard Laurel ask Duke if he wanted anything, to which the boy replied that he’d like anything that was an alcoholic beverage’.</p><p>‘You might have your voice modified, but no legal adult would ask me for an ‘alcoholic beverage, so only orange juice for you, Signal’.</p><p>“Jason” Bruce’s deep voice rang in his ears, as he took in the incoming call “… what were you thinking when you switched off the location chip, on both you and Duke?”.</p><p>Well, he wasn’t happy.</p><p>And wait till he heard they had accidentally injured Damian.</p><p>He was going to be fucking ecstatic.</p><p>“… calm down, Bruce, we are just on one of my secret hideouts” ‘you know… Laurel would be very pissed if I made a shit ton of vigilantes suddenly appear in her’ “… we are all safe, but we needed to stop somewhere since Damian was injured”.</p><p>Bruce’s sharp intake of breath made him wonder whether he had done the same with him, when he had first heard that he had thrown himself in a fucking suicide mission, searching for his original mother.</p><p>He doubted it.</p><p>But still…</p><p>“… how is he?” yeah, because even if he could let out a sharp breath, Bruce couldn’t process properly his own emotions, so he ended up simply doing that ‘Batman has no feelings’ impression.</p><p>Which Jason doubted was healthy.</p><p>But as a proud child of his, he had taken that bad habit after him.</p><p>“… he is fine, Steph is going to check on him” technically they all had some medical knowledge, but Stephanie had been attending a medical course to become a nurse, so she was usually the one who handled the medical crisis “… we are at one of my hideout, and I’ll get back soon into the fight”.</p><p>“Don’t leave Damian, alone” Bruce’s order made Jason grit his death to stop himself from muttering ‘why don’t you do it yourself you fucking idiot, why don’t you stop whatever the fuck you are doing and come to check on your fucking blood son’.</p><p>But he didn’t want to worsen an already shitty situation.</p><p>“… he isn’t alone, he is with Duke and…” shit shit shit, he blamed his loose tongue on the shock he had been going through since Damian had been wounded “… a friend”.</p><p>“Do you trust this friend?” was that some kind of teasing tone?</p><p>“… Bruce… I tell you that your child almost risked dying and you ask me about my friends?” he replied as he heard Bruce take another light huff at the mention of ‘Damian’s almost dying moment’, trying to ease his tone “… I trust this friend”.</p><p>“Then I trust this friend, too”.</p><p>Was Bruce’s tone the one of a proud father?</p><p>Kind of.</p><p>Was he feeling a bit amazed by that and warm inside?</p><p>Kind of.</p><p>But he wouldn’t have acknowledged that.</p><p>“I’ll send you some information about the latest escaped prisoners” and he was back to Batman “… tell Duke to keep me updated onto Damian, alright?”.</p><p>“Of course, bossy pants”.</p><p>And the conversation was cut off.</p><p>And he could understand why Damian felt the need to constantly reinstate that he was the ‘blood son’, because if Bruce behaved that way with every of his children, he wouldn’t have also known who was the one that truly counted.</p><p>Although he would have betted that it was Tim who was Bruce’s favorite.</p><p>“Jason!” he heard Duke calling, from the dining room “… Spoiler said that she’ll come in a few minutes and will bring Tim, since Bruce has advised them to move in pairs and not alone…”.</p><p>Oh… to have his beloved replacement in his safehouse.</p><p>Laurel on her part didn’t bat an eyelash at that news and simply muttered about ‘maybe needing to clean up the whole place if she had known they would have guests’.</p><p>“As if you’d raise a hand to clean” muttered Jason, pushing away his helmet, under Duke’s terrorized stare now having a cup of what looked like orange juice in his hands “… you are a spoiled brat, ‘Rel, the only time I have seen you trying to clean up something were your glasses”.</p><p>“Look who is talking, trust-fund kid”.</p><p>“Are you sure that you aren’t together?” replied lightly Duke, sucking loudly from the straw that Laurel had given him, giving the whole drink a bit more flare, since the straw had a pink flamingo on it “… because you do bicker like an old couple”.</p><p>They both blushed painfully, and Jason couldn’t help but hate the fact that he didn’t have the helmet on, shielding his blush from Duke’s knowing glance, which got shut down by Laurel’s harsh glare and small ‘mind your own business, orange-juice stealer’.</p><p>“… next time spike it with salt” replied Jason, at that, gently bringing Laurel closer, although he knew that it was incriminating them even more, but he couldn’t deny that now that Damian was breathing heavily but steadily on their dining table, he could feel the shock overtaking his lucid mind.</p><p>They had almost failed the mission, which would have been annoying.</p><p>And risked losing Damian, which would have been a shame, although he wouldn’t have admitted it out loud.</p><p>And he just wanted to have Laurel, near, right now.</p><p>“Oh, you also plot together!” Duke’s tone was obviously joking, but his eyes were intensely set on both of them, whereas they were both searching for each other with their bodies to ease the embarrassment they were feeling “… but I’d like to keep on drinking this orange juice… so what did Bruce say?”.</p><p>“That he fucking hates me” he felt Laurel’s burning glance upon him at that “… I am going out in a bit and when Spoiler gives you the change go out with Tim, I’ll share the few info the big boss sent me with you, in a few minutes”.</p><p>He could feel Duke’s own disappointment at Bruce’s scarce interest towards his own child.</p><p>“… you shouldn’t go out, alone, Signal over here did tell you that Bruce has suggested to go out in pairs” he hadn’t thought of Laurel’s opinion on this till she voiced it, not because it didn’t matter, but because she usually left him to his own about the whole vigilantism theme.</p><p>“When do I ever listen to Bruce?” he retorted, puffing up his chest in a way that seemed almost meant to appear prideful, but he couldn’t help but feel like he was again a fifteen-year-old Robin trying to hide his fear with sarcasm “… I’ll be fine, I have died, before”.</p><p>“… that’s kind of meant to… like… not want you to die again” muttered Laurel, her hands pushing him to face her, as she stood onto her tip toes a sight that was dangerously adorable and the light sucking on the straw signaled that Duke was looking at them intensely.</p><p>“Don’t worry… I’ll be careful” replied lightly Jason, moving to lay a soft kiss on her forehead.</p><p>That conversation about their feelings was going to happen once he slammed a few more idiots, back in Arkham.</p><p>“… you better” Laurel’s threat held no bite, but she certainly meant it, being sure to look at him in the eyes, as she said it.</p><p>And their loveable moment was interrupted by Duke just going:</p><p>“I ship it”.</p><p>Dick was slowly on the road of becoming his favorite member of his family.</p><hr/><p>Technically, Laurel had been in Gotham for a long time by now.</p><p>She had seen weird things.</p><p>She was the neighbor to what she had by now dubbed Poison Ivy’s warehouse.</p><p>And on her first night in her new apartment, she had a vigilante breaking in her window, just to discover that it was the wrong apartment and that he had hurt his shoulder badly for nothing.</p><p>Now she was in love with that vigilante.</p><p>But nothing was as strange as said vigilante literally barging inside her house, by breaking her window again, alongside a yellow-dressed vigilante and what looked like the latest version of Robin in his arms, looking like one of those mannequins for CPR exercitations.</p><p>And now she was in her kitchen, checking on the passed-out Robin meanwhile Signal was drinking her favorite orange juice after he had detached a small piece of the suit and hadn’t Laurel noticed some kind of uneasiness at the thought of being unmasked, she would have told him to just ditch the whole helmet.</p><p>Honestly, who would have ever believed her?</p><p>And honestly if she had managed to hold onto Jason’s secret for all this time, she was sure she could be considered rather trustworthy.</p><p>But she also understood the need to keep the man behind the helmet separate from the helmet itself.</p><p>Jason Todd was her nerdish roommate.</p><p>Red Hood was the ruthless vigilante that had threatened people for Laurel.</p><p>And as much as it sounded crazy, she loved them both.</p><p>Good thing that she hadn’t to choose.</p><p>And not that she or Jason had had any conversation about their feelings.</p><p>They had obviously meant to on the vacation that they had programmed after they had both risked their lives in the undercover mission at ‘The Tale of Eros’, but the whole thing being cancelled off certainly put the whole thing further away in their minds.</p><p>Even more when Signal had looked at them both as if they were some kind of newest episode on the latest TV series he had been watching.</p><p>Well, certainly in the middle of this whole mess, they both had to push their feelings away to keep their minds lucid.</p><p>Although worry towards Jason haunted Laurel.</p><p>And she couldn’t deny that the sight of a passed-out Robin didn’t help.</p><p>She had been in California when Jason had died.</p><p>Far far away from him.</p><p>She had been fourteen and the kind of teenager that shied away from everybody and used the ‘not like the other girls’ pretense to try to cover up the immense need she had to make her mother proud, although Cristiana barely minded Laurel any business.</p><p>And around the time Jason was fighting to keep his own life, Laurel was fighting to keep hers.</p><p>Suicidal thoughts were the reason why she kept on seeing a therapist monthly.</p><p>She had never acted upon them, but…</p><p>… but she had gotten close to, many times.</p><p>And when Jason had told her, after a horrid nightmare, how he had died, she had felt happy of not having acted on them.</p><p>Because she wouldn’t be by Jason’s side.</p><p>She had told him about them, expecting him to call her ‘stupid’ or ‘idiotic’ or ‘selfish’, all words that her mother used quite often, but Jason had simply brought her closer to him and told her that he was happy that she was still alive.</p><p>To have met her.</p><p>Laurel knew that Jason could do his job pretty well.</p><p>But still, the outside world in Gotham seemed pretty fucking horrible.</p><p>Even more when there was a literal child barely breathing on her kitchen table.</p><p>She shot a quick look at Robing.</p><p>Yhey had managed to attach him to a small device that checked his heartbeat making sure that it was stable.</p><p>Laurel honestly had bene surprised by all that amazing technology that Jason stored in his ‘Mary Poppins’ ‘ bag, but she knew that she’d have that conversation with him, another day.</p><p>“… so like… this isn’t the first time that Jason broke a window of yours?” asked Signal, who had offered to adjust the window, simply covering it with a panel to avoid coldness entering the room.</p><p>“The first time I met Jason or… Red Hood…” there was something ridiculous in calling him like that when they had had ‘that conversation’ in front of his fellow vigilante friend “… he broke my window, wanting to get into Ivy’s warehouse, which is… nearby”.</p><p>“Honestly… that’s rough”.</p><p>It had been.</p><p>Laurel had just reassured her sister that although Gotham seemed scary, she had felt completely and utterly safe in the few days she had been staying in the shadowy city.</p><p>And then a vigilante with a gun in each hand just appeared in her living room.</p><p>Wonderful.</p><p>“… I swear to God… I was halfway through a mental breakdown…” she shot back, immediately “… then I realized I’d have to pay the window that was very very new… and I just… started screaming at him”.</p><p>“You have my respect” shot the yellow-suited vigilante “… and my axe”.</p><p>“And my sword” Laurel continued the literary quotation, gaining a rather smiling reaction from Signal “… but seriously I’ll have a talk with him about breaking windows, also because Mrs. Nesbitt, the lady that is above us… kind of… is a noisy neighbor so…”.</p><p>“… we’ll be out of your hair the sooner we can” muttered the boy and Laurel just felt mortified for having implied that he wasn’t welcomed in her house and rushed in immediately to right the comment, and she could almost hear Jason commenting on her blushing cheeks.</p><p>“I didn’t… I didn’t mean…” she replied “… you can stay all you want, I’ll tell Mrs. Nesbitt that I have taken onto an illegal activity of babysitting”.</p><p>“Technically living with Jason does entail that…”.</p><p>Laurel laughed at Signal’s serious expression, but inside she couldn’t help but think that technically there was a good amount of babysitting between both her and Jason in their ‘sharing an apartment’.</p><p>She made sure that Jason didn’t pass out from blood loss.</p><p>And he made sure that Laurel didn’t pass out from exhaustion at her computer.</p><p>A knock at the door startled them and it was Signal who went immediately to the door, his whole armor making a small sound which implied that it was activated and ready to hit any threat, meanwhile Laurel went to the dining table where the hurt Robin had been placed.</p><p>They had been worried about a possible hemorrhage and reopening of the wound if they moved him before having stitched him up.</p><p>They both exchanged a look before Signal asked the code word.</p><p>Just for the people behind the door to answer.</p><p>“… fuck you, Duke, you know it’s me and Timbers!”.</p><p>So much for secrecy.</p><p>Although she couldn’t see Signal’s face, she knew that he had just facepalmed himself at that answer and with a quick movement he undid the various locks, opening the door to a violet Spoiler and Red Robin.</p><p>“… guys, we are kind of… on a mission…” muttered ‘Duke’, before letting them in, but Spoiler just pushed past him, meanwhile Tim sent him a look as if to say ‘what did you expect?’.</p><p>“… yeah, my mission is discovering who is Jason’s girlfriend” replied immediately Spoiler, eyeing quickly Laurel and with, a satisfied smirk, moving towards her, as Duke replied what the sole civilian had on the tip of her tongue:</p><p>“She isn’t Jason’s girlfriend” he muttered, and Laurel shot him a thankful look “… at least not yet…”.</p><p>And that got him a glare from Laurel</p><p>But she was soon cornered by Spoiler, who to her merit quickly moved to assess Robin’s situation, meanwhile Laurel was free to take in Red Robin’s.</p><p>AKA Tim Drake.</p><p>AKA Jason’s replacement.</p><p>He looked even younger than Laurel had pictured him.</p><p>And when he caught her staring at him, he shot her a tentative look, which she returned not wanting to be caught stalking him, but honestly curious about the Robin that made Jason feel so at unease.</p><p>As if he wasn’t wanted in the family.</p><p>She could understand the sensation pretty well, since Victoria had always made her feel like the unwanted daughter.</p><p>Not doing anything other than being herself.</p><p>But she felt that with Jason and his family there was something different.</p><p>Even more now that Laurel had met his entire family in the span of a few weeks.</p><p>“… can you get me some clean water and disinfectant?” Spoiler asked her, already taking out needle and thread out of Jason’s medical kit and checking the damage on the shoulder and Damian’s vitals.</p><p>Laurel, Duke and Tim both moved all towards the sink, just to risk bumping in each other and eventually Laurel left them to the water in the kitchen nearby, meanwhile she went to get the disinfectant solution.</p><p>And when she came back, Spoiler had gotten her mask off.</p><p>Tim was looking at her with a reprimanding note on his face and Duke seemed to have just given up with the whole ‘mask-no mask’ situation, helping with undoing the patch on Damian’s wound, partially stabilized, proceeding to then hold down the body, since, although he hadn’t woken up till right now, he would surely for the stitches.</p><p>Laurel had once had Jason to stitch a small cut on one of her fingers, and it hurt like a bitch.</p><p>She honestly pitied the poor child.</p><p>Who, should have been the infamous Damian Wayne.</p><p>If her calculations were right.</p><p>Spoiler instead seemed a blonde girl that Laurel didn’t appear to recognize, but she settled to simply let her work, pushing down the questions, as she and Tim found themselves standing nearby, ready for more commissions in case Stephanie needed anything.</p><p>Laurel certainly didn’t expect to hear him talk.</p><p>And even more start talking with her.</p><p>“Jason says that you can be trusted”.</p><p>“… thank you…?”.</p><p>“… also sorry for literally just barging in your house”.</p><p>“I wasn’t certainly having the funniest of nights” she retorted, glad that the whole emotional talk had been quickly dismissed with him.</p><p>Tim laughed, meanwhile Spoiler started the first of the stitches and Laurel couldn’t help but be impressed by the fact that Damian didn’t do anything to react to the sting of the needle, although she had to admit that Spoiler’s touch was much more attentive than Jason’s had been.</p><p>“… yeah, we are kind of unsure if he is a human or a demonic being” rambled lightly Tim, watching the whole scene as if it wasn’t definitely his first time witnessing such a scene “… I mean… you share an apartment with a zombie”.</p><p>“It is more like… I share my apartment with Jesus…” Laurel replied, with a slight look at Tim, suddenly feeling like she might have liked the boy a bit more than Jason would have approved.</p><p>And she could certainly notice that Jason had had some kind of influence on the boy’s sarcasm.</p><p>Spoiler ended up quickly her work, swiftly pushing all the bloodied supplies in the small basin of water she had beside her, some kind of dread and worry appearing on her face and Laurel moved to suggest that she took care of the basin and cleaned up all the supplies.</p><p>Which truly meant that she would have thrown them in the sink and washed them the following morning.</p><p>When she came back, both Duke and Tim had moved towards the door, probably leaving since they were wanted elsewhere, meanwhile Spoiler probably had to stay to check on Damian, because of her medical expertise.</p><p>“… shouldn’t he have woken up by now?” Laurel could feel the concern in Duke’s voice and Tim beside him definitely looked concerned, although his gaze tried to keep itself focused.</p><p>“He should…” muttered Spoiler, gently thanking Laurel who appeared with clean towels, offering them to the girl, who, on a closer look, seemed definitely much younger than her “… but sometimes our body just need a bit of calm…”.</p><p>“Let us know when he wakes up” asked Tim, although his look was definitely hidden behind his mask, Laurel managed to catch both his worry and both his complicity with Spoiler, who nodded and wished them ‘goodbye’.</p><p>Before turning to Laurel, with a smile that definitely got her blood to still in her veins.</p><p>“… what about a cup of hot cocoa?” that was a perfect bribing method.</p><p>Or at least it worked on her.</p><p>And it did work on Spoiler, who shot her a rather thankful smile.</p><p>“… the only thing is that… I won’t promise that it won’t be burned…”.</p><p>The first time Laurel had prepared hot cocoa for herself, she had burned it partially.</p><p>Which got Jason to blurt out a ‘how the fuck do you mess up soluble hot cocoa?’.</p><p>‘… oh wait… you never had to raise a hand to prepare anything’ he had added, sending her a sassy look.</p><p>Laurel had wanted to call him out as the hypocrite he was for telling her that, since he had lived his whole boyhood in a Manor with a butler, but as it always happened hot cocoa made her emotional.</p><p>‘… I actually… didn’t have to raise a finger till I was five, since I had a nanny wherever I went…’ and Jason had shot her a rather smug look ‘… then my mother just threw away any sweet or any caloric nightmare that was in our kitchen, making sure that I never ate hot cocoa, in her house’.</p><p>And then Jason’s smirk had dropped.</p><p>This time Laurel had perfected her hot cocoa and she pushed a mug full of it at Spoiler, or Stephanie, as she had presented herself, snuggly sat on the sofa with a fluffy blanket all around her.</p><p>The girl thanked her, risking of burning her tongue on the hot liquid.</p><p>“Don’t rush!” reprimanded her lightly Laurel, sitting on the floor nearby, since the rest of the sofa had been occupied by a sleeping Damian, which both she and Stephanie had moved there to be more comfortable, slipping pillow beneath him to keep his head upright “… it won’t disappear in a minute”.</p><p>And yet, Laurel knew that Jason had a similar attitude with food.</p><p>So, she didn’t try to sound too annoying with her reprimand, glad that the hot cocoa had managed to shift Stephanie’s curiosity away from her relationship with Jason, as her eyes checked Damian’s heart monitor.</p><p>The sound of it was steady and she had rejected the thought of going back to watching F1, to hear it.</p><p>Technically she knew that probably the entire clan of people related to the Bat didn’t consider her in any way useful and probably to them she was more a collateral affect than anything, but she was honestly worried about the child’s health, although it seemed like a normal occurrence for them.</p><p>“… so…” that was worrying.</p><p>“I am not Jason’s girlfriend” Laurel put her hands forward as if to say ‘it isn’t even worth asking’.</p><p>“… fuckbuddy?”.</p><p>Laurel couldn’t think that she was being questioned about such a thing by somebody that was probably sixteen.</p><p>“… no” it was choked but it did convey the message.</p><p>“But like… you live together… and Jason does trust you…”.</p><p>That seemed to be quite the leitmotif of this whole situation.</p><p>Laurel did know that there was something between her and Jason.</p><p>That went beyond of friendship.</p><p>But it was freaking complex.</p><p>Because neither of them felt like they were brave enough to confess their feelings.</p><p>And their self-esteem issues brought them down, heavily.</p><p>Laurel cringed at the sole thought of being naked in an ‘intimate situation’ with Jason.</p><p>And he still preferred to run away instead of talking about what was bothering with him.</p><p>“… it’s complicated”.</p><p>That did seem to give Steph some calm.</p><p>“… Gosh, you even talk like him” she muttered with an exasperated huff “… which means that you talk like…”.</p><p>“… Bruce?” she tried to suggest, because technically she wasn’t supposed to know this thing and as much as Steph might not worry about her own identity, she might worry about it all linking back to Bruce.</p><p>Too bad that even the bestest of disguises had their own limits.</p><p>“Oh, thank God, you know!” she screeched loudly enough that they both turned their heads towards a sleeping Damian who just scrunched his eyebrows but didn’t seem to actually seem to stir up “… you are kind of one of us, by the way, do expect Bruce checking on your ass and making sure that you won’t say anything”.</p><p>“I live with the Red Hood” Laurel shot back “… Batman doesn’t scare me”.</p><p>“He should”.</p><p>Well, she was indeed scared by that third voice, which had its origin in Damian having finally awake, who was pushing his upper body up with a rather painful moan probably due to stretching his shoulder.</p><p>Both the women shot up to help him.</p><p>But he immediately got in a defensive pose.</p><p>“Where the hell am I?” he asked, commandeering an answer “… I know who Brown over here is… but you… green-eyed human, who the hell are you?”.</p><p>“… you are safe, Damian” although Damian shot a skeptical look to Stephanie, he did ease his posture, falling behind against the couch and trying to bring his arms to cross over his chest, but another pained moan showed him that it didn’t seem possible “… and this is Laurel; Todd’s girlfriend”.</p><p>Laurel’s glare should have set Stephanie on fire, hadn’t she been protected by the utter power of ruthlessness and gossip.</p><p>“Todd is too stupid to have a girlfriend” replied Damian, as if it was simply natural.</p><p>“… in fact, he is simply my roommate”.</p><p>“Yeah, that seems more probable”.</p><p>Laurel, who had been taught how to handle the children due to her interest in teaching and having been like a mother to her younger sister, felt like she hadn’t a child in front of her, but a full-grown adult.</p><p>And Damian was indeed the photocopy of Bruce Wayne as he was described to be.</p><p>And she didn’t know what to do, honestly.</p><p>“… would you… like some hot cocoa?” technically she had meant to do a bit more for herself, but Laurel definitely thought that she could spare a bit for a child that was trying to hide his fear under the mask of an older persona.</p><p>“TT…” she looked at Stephanie as if to ask: ‘should I take that as a yes?’ and the blondie did nod softly and Laurel moved to the kitchen, happy of the manual task, meanwhile she heard two voices ushered.</p><p>Probably Damian trying to understand what was going on.</p><p>And Stephanie answering him.</p><p>“… here it comes a cup of hot cocoa for you” Laurel was careful to hand it from the side of the handle so that Damian wouldn’t burn his hands “… be careful, it’s hot”.</p><p>“TT… I know I am not an idiot!” he muttered, just to be elbowed by Stephanie “… thank you, …”.</p><p>“Oh, wait shit…” had you just seriously sworn in front of a child? “… I am Laurel, by the way”.</p><p>Her mother had wanted something that sounded American for her name, based on Laurel’s grandmother’s name, Laura, and she had come up with Laurel, like the plant that was used to crown poets and winners in the Ancient Greece.</p><p>She didn’t dislike her name too much, personally.</p><p>But it felt strange.</p><p>And definitely too glorious for somebody who spent her days trying to avoid Giblison’s death by sniffing the powdered sugar of his donuts.</p><p>Damian didn’t mutter anything else, just nodded, his whole body being extremely tiredly, since although he hadn’t fallen asleep again, he was probably tired by the effect of the loss of blood and Stephanie did fuss a bit around him, checking.</p><p>Much to his dismay.</p><p>“If you leave Stephanie check on your wound, I’ll let you pick a movie to watch” Laurel knew she wasn’t definitely going to get any sleep, in the immediate future.</p><p>“TT… did you tell her your name, Brown?” Damian did look pretty disappointed in Stephanie, who simply sent him an annoyed look, probably used to this “… and I am not a child, kidnapper”.</p><p>“I am not a kidnapper” muttered Laurel “… and second, you, Damian Wayne, are probably twelve so technically… a child”.</p><p>He looked surprised at the mention of his name, first sending a worried look to Stephanie and then moving another towards Laurel, who simply smirked at him.</p><p>“… well… that’s a problem…” muttered Steph, managing to finish binding up Damian’s wound, now that he was too shocked to properly react “… now she either dies or we’ll get her to marry Jason Todd so that she won’t testify against us”.</p><p>Laurel laughed loudly.</p><p>“… TT… this isn’t funny, Brown!” screamed loudly Damian, but Laurel simply ruffled his hair, just worsening his whole reaction “… father will grow even more grey hair!”.</p><p>“… even more than the time that you popped up suddenly in our lives, completely disrupting them” shot back Stephanie, and Laurel did remember that Jason had told her something about Damian being… ‘a surprise’ to say the least.</p><p>“Brown, fuck…”.</p><p>“No swear words, child!” Laurel and Stephanie replied in sync, with a sing-song voice that eventually got the ‘child’ indeed to back off from both of them, crossing his arms through the pain to entail his annoyance.</p><p>Till Laurel passed him her iPad with Netflix on it and did let him choose what he preferred.</p><p>His choice ended up on one of Laurel’s favorite movies, ‘Stardust’.</p><p>Which he hadn’t yet watched.</p><p>Such a daring offense to his host, who required he filled this ignorance, watching it with her.</p><p>The first time Laurel had watched it Victoria, their nanny had been too busy talking with her boyfriend to properly check on them.</p><p>Which she should have done, because Victoria had had nightmares for weeks, after watching it, meanwhile Laurel had been initiated to fantasy, one of her favorite genre of both books and movies.</p><p>And also, Stephanie grimaced lightly when the evil witches talked about eating the Star’s heart.</p><p>But Damian just looked at it fascinatedly.</p><p>Still, he wasn’t able to follow it through much farther, since halfway through the tavern scene, he fell asleep, leaning onto Laurel with an innocence that did resemble for a moment the child that he should have been at his age.</p><p>And Laurel did the thing that always helped Victoria when she had too many thoughts in her head.</p><p>She gently caressed his hair, till his breath picked up an even pace.</p><p>Stephanie, beside her, looked at her with big eyes, but didn’t dare to say anything.</p><p>She kept vigil, alongside Laurel, the movie paused for Damian’s benefit, so he wouldn’t think that they had just ditched him in favor of finishing the movie, which Laurel knew by heart and Stephanie just looked grateful of avoiding seeing anybody slaughtered by an evil witch.</p><p>At three A. M. her phone vibrated, the ID caller revealed it was Jason and she gently switched position with Stephanie to allow Damian to continue on sleeping, while leaning on somebody, moving to another room for privacy, although she felt the blonde girl’s gaze following her.</p><p>“… is everything alright?” fuck, if she loved that voice.</p><p>But something in it seemed so damnably tired that she couldn’t deny that her heart didn’t ache at hearing like that.</p><p>‘Just come home’ Laurel wanted to tell him ‘… just fucking come home’.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, Damian has woken up and fallen asleep again” she replied “… and they are all convinced I am your girlfriend…”.</p><p>A minute of silence passed through them.</p><p>‘Please say that you want me as your girlfriend’.</p><p>“… fuck, I’ll tell them to back off” well… that was good enough.</p><p>“They are kind of… annoying… but it’s endearing” she muttered, believing each word “… what about you? Is everything alright?”.</p><p>“… it’s…” Laurel expected him to say ‘it’s ok’ “… I honestly wish that I could be beside you right now”.</p><p>“Me too”.</p><p>This was as close to confession as they could be.</p><p>“… when I come home…” that was promising “… and the brats are out of the door… we need to talk”.</p><p>“Agreed” she replied lightly “… we need that more than a vacation”.</p><p>“Agreed” he shot back the answer and she could picture his smile against his phone “… you are special to me Laurel, that’s why I kind of tend to break your windows”.</p><p>‘I want to break your walls’ Laurel wanted to reply ‘… gently and softly, most importantly slowly’.</p><p>“… please do come from the front door, this time” Laurel replied lightly “… stay safe, out there, although you are wearing that idiotic helmet”.</p><p>“I know that you love the helmet but refuse to admit it” and it was again back to their usual banter, tinted with that sweetness that made her want to kiss him over and over “… exactly like you love me and refuse to admit it”.</p><p>And before Laurel could reply, the line went dead.</p><p>Typical Jason Todd, releasing bombs on her and expecting her not to say anything.</p><p>He was going to fucking pay.</p><p>When she came back in the kitchen there was another figure nearby Stephanie, an ominous costume that remembered Batman shielding her from being revealed to Laurel’s gaze, but leaving nothing to be seen or imagined.</p><p>Definitely the stuff that nightmares were made of.</p><p>Stephanie, noticing her uneasiness, shot a quick look to Laurel:</p><p>“She is one of us, don’t worry” and then moved to the girl in the black ensemble “… Cass, she is ok, you can unmask”.</p><p>The girl seemed a bit worried, but eventually undid the top part of her costume and Laurel recognized Cassandra Cain, Bruce’s adopted girl, which she had never linked to Batgirl.</p><p>Apparently that demise worked better than she had thought.</p><p>“Hi” she mumbled, and Cassandra waved her hand, softly, still in a fighting stance but not as worried as she had been previously, definitely believing Steph’s word.</p><p>“Cass doesn’t talk too much” explained Steph, who had, in the meanwhile, worn her mask again “… she’ll take on the next turn, I need to go outside, Timbers is actually waiting for me”.</p><p>And a light knock on her unbroken window confirmed it.</p><p>“… wait, let me give you some coffee” offered Laurel, knowing that according to Jason, Tim’s brain functioned on caffeine only and she thought that in such a night he might need at least a mug of it.</p><p>She filled a thermos and gave it to Stephanie, wishing her ‘goodnight’, meanwhile Tim thanked her with a hand wave behind the window for the thermos.</p><p>And then she was left with a sleeping Damian and a silent Cassandra.</p><p>“I am Laurel” she offered, miming it with the language of signs “… my knowledge of the sign language isn’t amazing, but…”.</p><p>She remembered Jason mentioning that he used the sign language to speak with his ‘sister’, but she had never linked that knowledge to the black-haired girl in her dining room, till Stephanie had explained Cass’ silence.</p><p>Cass replied in sign language, slowly and Laurel was able to catch onto that.</p><p>‘I am Cassandra, but you already know that’ and then with a small smirk ‘… you can talk with me, I do understand you, if it is easier’</p><p>“That’s a pretty name” she signed back, and then moved on talking, being careful not to be too loud “… and Damian is asleep, on the couch, we were watching a movie”.</p><p>Cassandra nodded, and to Laurel, who was talkative by nature, couldn’t help but feel like this was somehow awkward.</p><p>Still the girl did move onto her couch next to Damian, remaining still utterly dangerous in her effortless grace.</p><p>To fill in the silence Laurel switched on her TV, attentive to keep the volume to a minimum, a replica of some old ballet performance appearing on the black screen.</p><p>That seemed to attract Cass’ interest, her eyes shining bright and her feet lightly tapping the rhythm.</p><p>Victoria had once tried to do ballet.</p><p>Mostly to please her mother.</p><p>But she had had a few problems with her coordination and eventually had dropped out.</p><p>She had wanted to try modern dance, but it hadn’t worked out well with her mother’s interests.</p><p>Laurel had hated Victoria being humiliated and kept form what she truly liked, simply because her mother thought it wasn’t proper.</p><p>And that was why it was also painful for her knowing that Victoria had chosen, over Laurel, the mother that didn’t care about her, over the sister that had taken care of her.</p><p>Halfway through a rendition of the ‘Giselle’, as Cass’ signs had told her, she had fallen asleep, just to wake up to a gentle knock of the door and a fluffy blanket wrapped around her, Cass’ eyes focused on the TV but something in her definitely making sure that no threat would endanger her and Damian.</p><p>Laurel was a bit moved.</p><p>But then the banging at the door intensified.</p><p>Cassandra got up quickly right as Damian changed position to get more comfortable on Laurel’s lap and opened the door to a pretty girl that could have definitely been part of the Batclan, considering the light eyes and dark hair combo, although her skin wasn’t as vampiric white as the one of the other members.</p><p>Cass and the girl exchanged a few words, meanwhile Laurel noticed that the dawn of a new day was starting to appear outside of her windows, signaling that Sunday was coming around and that she had just survived a night with Jason’s family.</p><p>Cass moved aside to let the girl pass, who waved at Laurel and offered her a hand, meanwhile in the other she had a ‘Mutant Teenage Ninja Turtles’ themed backpack, probably belonging to Damian although the girl found it difficult to imagine such a serious child with such a silly backpack.</p><p>But she had to refocus herself on the slim girl looking at her attentively.</p><p>“Judith Molina” she offered to Laurel “… full-time babysitter of the gremlin drooling on your couch and part-time involved in all the bat-shit”.</p><p>“Laurel Cellini” she replied, accepting and shaking her hand “… full-time Jason Todd’s babysitter and part-time secretary at the police station, which also… entails a good amount of babysitting…”.</p><p>Judith laughed lightly at that.</p><p>And fuck… were all the people in the family so freaking gorgeous?</p><p>She was definitely blushing.</p><p>“I’ll get the gremlin out of your hands in a few minutes” Judith explained softly “… and Cass”.</p><p>The younger girl smiled at her softly, definitely showing some kind of complicity between them.</p><p>“Ahh, I do think that you’ll have to carry him…” but as her eyes shifted, Laurel immediately noticed that Damian had actually woken up and was looking at both her and Judith carefully “… or not”.</p><p>“Nobody is carrying me, anywhere” pointed out Damian, getting to his feet, although Laurel witnessed a rather clumsy attempt of his to disentangle his body from the blanket wrapped around him, probably curtesy of Cass.</p><p>“… not even for a piggyback ride?” teased him Judith, with an easiness that spoke of many years spent together.</p><p>And Damian’s sole reply was a glare that said: ‘I’ll stab you, if you even try’.</p><p>He went up to Judith and got his backpack, then looking at Laurel with a glare that would have certainly lighted her up on fire hadn’t she been used to Jason’s.</p><p>Those two definitely had more in common than they thought.</p><p>“… the bathroom is on your right down the hall”.</p><p>“Thank you, Laurel” he muttered, before speeding off in his bloodied Robin suit, as Judith shot her a rather amazed look.</p><p>“Wow, how did you get him on the first name basis?”.</p><p>“I kind of… hot cocoa and ‘Stardust’ “ Laurel replied, meanwhile she moved lightly back to collect her iPad, not wanting to seem rude to Judith, but discreetly checking the news in search of something related to Red Hood, and accidentally unlocking the app on which she was watching F1.</p><p>The noise of the rumbling motors definitely got a reaction from Judith, the woman smirking softly and then her eyes shone brightly, definitely recognizing the sound, right when Laurel blocked her iPad to silence it.</p><p>“… is that… Monza 2019?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, and Laurel honestly didn’t think that she could have liked a person anymore “… wait… don’t tell that you are a Ferrari fan?”.</p><p>“Technically I am at half-Italian… so I am forced to like them… but…” she mumbled annoyedly, but then conspiratorially adding “… but Alphatauri is my favorite team…”.</p><p>“I knew that there was a reason why I liked you!” exclaimed loudly Judith, grabbing her hands, in a way that seemed almost childlike and in fact before they could touch her, she pushed them away with a blushing face “… I mean… I like Checo… I mean… I am partly Mexican from my dad’s side, so…”.</p><p>“… well, let me tell you… Racing Point certainly knows what they are doing with their suits”.</p><p>“I am surprised they aren’t sponsored by Barbie”.</p><p>As they were sharing a loud laugh, Damian appeared offering his backpack to Judith, who blindly offered him a hand to hang it onto.</p><p>He then turned to Laurel, and the girl couldn’t help but feel a bit awkward, but still smiled at the boy, stopping herself from lowering her body to be at his eye-level.</p><p>She was sure that he would have stabbed her in the kneecaps, if she had tried to.</p><p>“… Laurel… my staying here was bearable”.</p><p>Laurel couldn’t help but think about how her mother had once muttered a similar thing about her as a daughter.</p><p>‘Laurel, you are a decent daughter’.</p><p>“… I am… glad?” she sent a swift look at Judith, who just shook her head as if to say ‘just let it go’.</p><p>“… and I want to finish watching the movie”.</p><p>“That could be arranged”.</p><p>Laurel would always be interested in rewatching her favorite movie, and although Damian kept up his haughty behavior, she was glad of knowing that he had liked it.</p><p>“… Cass, are you ready?” asked Judith to the black-haired girl, who nodded and put on her cowl, but before she was masked again, she sent Laurel a small smirk and mouthed a soft ‘thank you’ “… well, then we’ll leave”.</p><p>“Be careful with that shoulder” muttered Laurel, looking at Damian, who just shook lightly his head, but a bit more tired than annoyed and the girl could see that he was leaning lightly against Judith “… and if you ever want to talk about F1, you know where to find me”.</p><p>A pretty smile shone on Judith’s face and Laurel shot one back.</p><p>“Thank you” it was soft and hung in the air between them, till Laurel closed the door, and slumped against it, till her butt touched the floor.</p><p>And then she let out a breath of relief.</p><p>Which was abruptly interrupted halfway when Damian proclaimed:</p><p>‘If Todd won’t marry her, I will’.</p><p>She was halfway through laughing at that when her phone rang</p><p>Jason.</p><p>“… do I have to let you in, before you break another window?”.</p><p>A long silence only welcomed Laurel, lightly interrupted by thick breaths and tiny whimper and for a moment she worried that Jason might be injured and alone, calling her as her last resort.</p><p>“Jason!” she screamed trying to gain his attention “… fucking answer Jason”.</p><p>“I am here, ‘Rel” fuck his voice seemed far more relaxed, although she could feel that he was straining himself to make it seem that wat“… I just… I just don’t have good news for you”.</p><p>“Please tell me that the bad news is that you broke another window” ‘don’t tell me that you are hurt, please don’t fucking tell me that you were shot or stabbed or worse’.</p><p>“… no don’t worry, I didn’t do anything to your precious windows” his sarcasm dripped of poison and Laurel brought the phone closer to her ear, as if she could also bring Jason closer with that gesture “… but I am… am leaving Gotham, tonight”.</p><p>“What?”.</p><p>“Apparently the whole Arkham evasion was planned” he gritted his teeth, annoyed “… and some of the prisoners managed to escape us and reached a plane ready for them and we weren’t able to stop them, because of the…”.</p><p>‘Damian’s situation’.</p><p>Laurel was honestly surprised that they hadn’t just barged in her house, bringing Damian at home.</p><p>But she thought that they probably exercised for emergencies like this.</p><p>But this didn’t justify Jason leaving the town.</p><p>“Can’t anybody else go, instead of you?”.</p><p>It was selfish.</p><p>They had already sacrificed their vacation.</p><p>And she wasn’t sad for the wasted opportunity of relaxing under the tropical sun.</p><p>Laurel hated the fact that whenever they were close to confessing their feelings, there was something that held them back.</p><p>Although she knew that it wasn’t either’s fault.</p><p>“… honestly, I offered myself”.</p><p>Fuck you, Jason Todd you certainly know how to make girls feel special.</p><p>She wanted to fucking slam he phone down in that moment.</p><p>“… well, then have a nice journey” Laurel tried to still her voice, at the thought of how horridly she had felt the last time they had fought, when she had been unfair to him, although she knew that he needed more time and yet feeling a bit exhausted.</p><p>“Laurel, we’ll talk when I come back”.</p><p>“You say that as if it is so obvious and not a possibility” she knew that was a low blow, even more said on the phone, after she had basically known his entire family.</p><p>And she wondered if he was backing up because of that.</p><p>Scared that she’d be annoyed by his family.</p><p>Meanwhile she was scared that she didn’t meet up their standards.</p><p>“… I’ll come back…” he insisted “… to you, sweetheart”.</p><p>“That’s a low blow”.</p><p>Laurel didn’t want to smirk at that nickname, she wanted to hold her grudge against him.</p><p>She was a champion in that.</p><p>“… I am honestly tired from fighting baddies, you can’t expect me not to use low blow with the prettiest girl that I know”.</p><p>“Flattery will get you nowhere” she replied annoyedly, but she couldn’t deny the light smirk that appeared on her face as she passed a hand onto it “… but do use it, if it’ll make you come back in here safe”.</p><p>“Do you want me to come back to you, safe, babe?”.</p><p>She was going to freaking ban petnames, before they gave her a heart-attack.</p><p>And Laurel was a bit annoyed that he was the one constantly asking questions.</p><p>“… only if you answer this honestly, Jason…” it was a tone lighter than she had meant “… do you want to come back to me, in one piece?”.</p><p>Because he could want to come home.</p><p>But did he want to come back to Laurel?</p><p>She had been a child grown in the utter neglect of her mother.</p><p>Which had just fueled her insecurities.</p><p>So, it was only normal that she needed reassurance, in these cases.</p><p>Even more with somebody like Jason.</p><p>“Yes” it was a feeble whisper “… I know that I don’t deserve it…”.</p><p>“I won’t make you sleep in the doghouse” Laurel promised him, knowing that keeping a grudge wouldn’t be effective with him, as much as she wanted to “… you won’t win me with a pretty smile, but I want you back home, simply because you are the sole person I want to spend my time with”.</p><p>“I don’t know… you and Damian seemed pretty cozy” typical Jason, deviating any deep conversation with sarcasm.</p><p>But she could imagine him smiling by the lighthearted tone.</p><p>As if he had been freed from a heavy rock on his chest.</p><p>“… what?!”.</p><p>And then Laurel’s screen had glowed with a few messages, images actually.</p><p>Of her and Damian sleeping on top of each other.</p><p>Take by Cassandra.</p><p>“… I can’t… this is…” she honestly didn’t know what to say, truly surprised that Cass could be that mischievous.</p><p>But she shouldn’t have been surprised since she was Jason’s favorite sister.</p><p>“They are my background, now”.</p><p>“I hate you, Jason Todd”.</p><p>“Not the first, not the last”.</p><p>“I’ll change the locks”.</p><p>“You do remember that I can pick locks”.</p><p>“There is no winning with you, Jason Todd” she huffed out, hearing him laugh, their ‘argument’ forgotten, although she knew that it was just a coverage to hold everything inside for a bit more.</p><p>“… oh c’mon, you can’t be a sore loser, Laurel” shit if that name sounded ten times better in his mouth “… my family practically loves you already…”.</p><p>“Does that scare you?” again that need for reassurance.</p><p>And the one thing that she knew was that Jason understood it.</p><p>That was why he was trying to be honest with her.</p><p>“… a bit” he muttered slowly, as if admitting it made him uncomfortable “… it isn’t anything about you… it just… they’ll tease me till the end of the world”.</p><p>“Is it so bad?”</p><p>“Would it be so bad to be my girlfriend?” instead this time it as him asking for reassurance.</p><p>“… no” because Jason might be a mess (who wasn’t) but he was honest and passionate and Laurel who had grown up in an apathic climate craved that closeness and sweetness with an intensity that she would have allowed him to burn her down gladly “… no I don’t think it would be so bad”.</p><p>“Then… I am not truly scared of my family liking you” he muttered, and Laurel could perfectly picture him, biting his lips roughly, clutching the phone against his ear just a bit tighter and his free hand hidden in his pants, as if she could spot the blood stains from that distance “… I am more scared of when you’ll be threatened about keeping the whole ‘secret identity’ under wrap”.</p><p>“Can’t you ask Bruce just to bribe me?” technically next month would have been Christmas and Laurel had seen a pretty edition of one of Jason’s favorite books, so money would be more than accepted.</p><p>“… will do” Laurel heard a light rustling of clothes and before she knew it Jason’s whole persona had shifted “… and about the old man… he is here, so I’ll have to leave soon, you know that calls are difficult on missions…”.</p><p>“Come back in one piece, Jason”.</p><p>“I know which piece you mean” he replied, his entire persona definitely having shifted into the Red Hood one.</p><p>“… yeah, obviously your middle finger, since it would probably make me scream more than your offending appendage would ever”.</p><p>“That was cold” Laurel smirked lightly, feeling like it was the sole thing that was holding back that choked sob she had right in her throat “… but I’ll do my best to come back home, to you, Laurel”.</p><p>“You better”.</p><p>She was the one that closed the call.</p><p>A little revenge for Jason.</p><p>But also, because as soon as the phone fell from her grasp, she started crying.</p><p>Fuck he better come home to her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>(A/N): Hello there, lovelies!</p><p>This is going to be probably the last chapter for a bit, since I don’t feel too well being on here, so I’ll probably take the next week off to relax a bit and calm down and think about a few things.</p><p>Still if you did like this, I’d love to know your thoughts.</p><p>I love the likes, but I’ll for ever love if you leave a comment!</p><p>Before you go on, I just want to put a huge disclaimer on here:<br/>I am not a true expert, although I have followed a few comics and done a few researches about the various universe, so if anything is considered inaccurate, just send me a DM/an ask, just please do remember to be kind and not attacking.<br/>And, if you did end up liking this silly work just let me know through a reblog or a comment or simply a like, it would certainly make me feel a bit more comfortable about my writing.<br/>Have a nice reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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